


Honey Trap

by KisaTaiga



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Attempts that action writing that is Terrible(TM), Blood and Violence, Multi, There Is A Traitor And You Will Never Guess Who, alcohol is involved, knife fight, the plot is very very very slow to arrive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:07:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16046714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KisaTaiga/pseuds/KisaTaiga
Summary: After sustaining an injury from a previous mission, Agent Craig Tucker had been taken out of commission and assigned with two rookie agents: the resident redhead's younger brother and a blonde from out of town. With a threatening presence starting to make itself known in the city, Craig found himself in a situation that he wanted no part of.





	1. Beginning (of a headache)

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Hiroyuki who had to put up with my rambling over this fic for months and beta-ing it for me <3

Doctor’s orders be damned, he was  _fine_ , like he said the last twenty or so times before. Craig scowled in the direction of the office where the medic was, probably humming away with that cheery tune that was all too cheery for his sour mood. Being tasked to train the rookies was a boring ass job for an active field agent like him, but orders were orders, no matter what. Being injured meant that he couldn’t move around like he wanted to. It wasn’t even that deep of a wound anyway, barely a scratch, and didn’t warrant being taken out of fieldwork. The dull throb of pain in his arm said otherwise, but he chose to ignore it. It was healing fast, with how much care Butters had put into glaring at him whenever he did so much as twitch when the medic was wrapping new bandages around his arm.

He was told that the recruits were waiting to be briefed in the conference room, and the stack of folders with their information was on his desk. Craig supposed there wasn’t any point in delaying it any further, and it would be better if he finished it sooner than later. Maybe Butters would get off his ass about being a workaholic. He wasn’t as bad as some others, like Kyle, who he swore _lived_ at his desk in the Comms unit.

His desk, or rather, the table he laid claim over in the field agents’ corner, had a small stack of files piled neatly on the side. Stan’s table across his was filled with messy paperwork that was teetering close to the edge of an avalanche. It was a wonder he even managed to file and submit his reports properly. He supposed having a partner being very particular on paperwork made work easier. Craig didn’t understand why he was still stuck using the medieval method of pen and paper when they had a new electronic system that was introduced a few years back. He picked up the files, tucking a pen into the pocket of his dress shirt.

The conference room wasn’t too far away, just past the Comms unit. The Communications unit, or as all of them refer to it as Comms, was where most of the computers in the building was, with the CPUs and wires cluttered around on the carpeted floor. As Craig passed the room, he spotted Kyle at his desk, typing away furiously at the keyboard, brows furrowed close together in a frown. There were files open and strewn around the desk, and he scribbled something onto a notepad. Craig made his way over to where the wooden door was, with the words ‘Conference Room 2’ etched on the surface.

To be honest, Craig wasn’t sure what he was here for. He had never taken the new recruits for training before since that was more of Clyde’s job, but he was out of commission for a while, and he still needed to do his job. His field partner had made a terrible decision (a mistake, that’s what it was) and Craig was there to drag his ass out of it. Craig would rather not relieve the memories of that day. But that didn’t mean that he knew how to handle the advanced training for these recruits. Craig had no idea how Clyde usually carried this out, and the agency didn’t supply them with a ‘How-to’ guide for times like this, did they? He hadn’t had the time to look at the files before arriving at the conference room, but Craig supposed that he would have to meet the recruits eventually.

The door slid open, and soft murmuring from the room filtered out through the gap. He was met face-to-face with a familiar figure, one he saw often in the Comms unit. Wendy was surprised to see him there from the way her eyes widened, but she cleared her throat and smoothed down her skirt. As usual, she didn’t have a hair out of place. “Agent Tucker,” she greeted. “I believe you know what you’re here for?”

“Yes, but why are _you_ here?” Craig asked, frowning. “Don’t you have a unit to run? Comms seemed _awfully busy_ when I saw it last. Didn’t think that the Comms Commander liked showing newbies around.”

“You report to me now, Agent Tucker. With the new reassignment, I’ll be taking over the field agents.” She stepped to the side, motioning for him to enter. Craig shrugged when she turned her back to him and followed her inside.

He took a glance around at the startled faces staring back at him, one dark-haired boy with grayish-blue eyes and the other with messy blonde hair, blue eyes lit with worry. Only two of them made it to the advanced training? What an _excellent_ crop this year. The stack of files made it look like there had been more than these two. One of the recruits looked fresh out of college, too young to even have started proper training, and the other had dark bags under his eyes, nervously shifting about in his chair under Craig’s steely gaze. Who were the ones who decided that they were suitable candidates? He did hear about how they were lacking more agents for fieldwork, but in his opinion, a shitty agent wouldn’t do any good at all. But he supposed he shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

He took a seat at the side of the table, facing the two recruits. Wendy was already back at the head of the table, and she turned a practiced smile to both recruits. “This is Agent Tucker. He’ll be taking both of you for your advanced training sessions. I believe he’ll be an excellent mentor to you, and hopefully you will learn useful skills from him.” The side-eye that she sent him clearly had a strong message behind it, but Craig chose to ignore it, giving a lazy wave to the recruits before picking up a file to read. Wendy cleared her throat. “As you know, I have been recently assigned as the Chief Operations Officer, so I will be overseeing your advanced training, and will be evaluating your skills at the end. If you manage to pass this year-long training, you will be able to graduate as a full-fledged agent of the Agency.”

As Wendy continued to explain what the advanced training included, Craig’s gaze had wandered off the pages and settled on watching the recruits. Well, one in particular. The blonde was listening to Wendy, absently picking at his fingernails. His blue eyes were watching the presentation that she was giving, and occasionally they would shift to look around the room and its occupants. When they met Craig’s, those eyes widened ever so slightly and a strangled noise of surprise left his lips. The room went silent as Wendy raised an eyebrow, turning to look at the blonde. “Agent Cox, is there a problem?”

“No, of course not.” The blonde winced, immediately turning his attention back to the screen. Craig almost let out a huff in laughter, finding it hard to keep a straight face. His name was Cox? Man, would Kenny have a field day with his name. He cleared his throat, and again, he could feel Wendy sending him a glare. Seeing that all attention was back on her, she continued her briefing. That meant that the blonde was now watching Wendy, although he was fidgeting in his seat, probably with the knowledge that Craig’s eyes were boring into him, watching his every movement.

“And that’s when the evaluation will be done. Agent Tucker, would you like to have the honour of showing them where their station will be? If you need me, I’ll be at the Comms unit.”

“Sure,” came his casual reply. Craig pushed himself off his seat, ignoring the twinge from his arm at the effort. Wendy deemed him ready to start and she nodded to the two recruits.

“I’ll check in the training after the first few weeks,” she said to Craig. “Maybe you can start off with the basics.” She paused. “It’s good to have you back though, Craig. Try not to mess up on this one, all right? We don’t need a repeat of the last mission.” He waved her off, and she sighed, trying to hold back a smile. “See you around,” she called back to him, then turned right past the door, the sounds of her heels clacking reverberated down the hallway.

He turned to the two recruits. “So,” he began, narrowing his eyes at them. They squirmed under his stare, especially the blonde who was back to fidgeting in his seat. The dark-haired boy crossed his arms. “Why did you decide to join the Agency?”

“To prove myself. And spy movies are hella cool.” The younger male nodded to himself, grinning. Craig couldn’t help but smile. Clyde had said the same thing back then, when they were still back in training. His smile grew tight at the thought of his friend.

“Spy movies are cool, but this is reality. One well-aimed shot,” he said, pointing his fingers in a gun at the boy, miming a shooting action, “and you’re dead. If you want to survive as a field agent, you’ll need the skills, Ike Broflovski. You’d better not repeat your brother’s mistakes.” Ike seemed surprised that Craig knew his name, or that he was related to the fiery redhead in the Comms unit. His profile had shown excellent scores for most parameters, which made him the top candidate of his class.

Ike frowned at the mention of the older Broflovski. “I won’t. Pardon my language, but he is a dick,” he muttered. “He thinks he knows what is best for me, but I can do more than he believes I can.”

“Kyle needs to pull that stick out of his ass,” Craig agreed. _Or let Stan pull it out for him,_ he thought to himself. Smirking at that thought, he turned to the blonde, raising an eyebrow. “And you?”

“...”

“Excuse me?” He swore he saw his lips move but the words had come out as a mumble. Craig didn’t quite catch what he said. The blonde was staring down at the table, fingers tapping onto the palms of his hand. If he stared any harder at the wooden table, it would’ve probably burst into flame. “Nervous about something? You wouldn’t stop fidgeting during Testaburger’s briefing.”

“No… Not really.” He didn’t elaborate any further than that.

Craig shrugged. “Sure. Tell me whenever you’re ready, Richard Cox.” He paused, throwing the man a sympathetic look. “An unfortunate name you have there.”

“I know,” he said, with a light huff. “I don’t like my name either.” Craig moved to sit on the table, and the effort made his arm throb. _Ignore it,_ he told himself, _or Stotch would end up breathing down my neck again about ‘bein’ careless with them injuries’._

“I don’t usually use nicknames, but you’ll be an exception, because no one will take you seriously with that name. Any preferences?” Craig asked, watching the recruit carefully.

The blonde looked deep in thought, then nodded. “Twitch,” he said. “Call me Twitch.”

“All right then, Twitch. Tell me why you want to join the agency.”

“I have someone to protect, and they said they would help me. So, I agreed,” Twitch explained. His fingers relaxed its grip on his palm, then his expression softened with a smile. “Don’t worry, I know how to take care of myself.” He looked up at Craig at last, blue eyes meeting his. His lips quirked up in a smirk. “I’m pretty good with a knife.”

“I’ll just have to see, then.” He returned the smirk with his own. “I won’t make it easy on you just because you’re a rookie.” Twitch was shorter than he was, and he looked like he didn’t sleep at all, judging by how dark the circles were under his eyes. Anyhow, he didn’t look like much of a challenge, although Craig wasn’t going to let his guard down. His profile wasn’t too outstanding, being someone who had been recommended by a higher-up out of the city. His scores were average, but then again, it wasn’t a good reflection of how good they might be in different situations.

Ike cleared his throat. “So, is it true that you get to use cool gadgets?” he asked, eyes shining. “Like in the movies?”

“Sorry, kiddo, but our PCs are still running Windows 98.”

“…Are you serious? Was everything a lie?”

“I’m kidding,” Craig said, his voice barely changing inflection. It was amusing to watch Ike’s expression drop from excitement to disappointment in a single moment, but there was a schedule to keep and there was paperwork to be done. With this additional assignment, he would be busy for a while. Great, just great.

He waved to the recruits to follow him, tucking the files under his arm. “I’ll show you around the agency, but for your own sake, don’t touch anything,” Craig warned. “Especially in the Gadget Lab.”

\-----

Craig brought the two along to where the pristine glass doors were, where few people in crisp white lab coats were milling around, clipboards clutched in their hands. That was strange. Were they testing out a new contraption of some kind? He swiped his card through the card reader, and the doors slid open. Turning back to the two recruits, he held up a hand to stop them from entering. “Don’t wander off and make sure you are somewhere where I can see you,” he said, satisfied when the two nodded at him. “Follow me.”

The lab was still as he remembered, the cluttered workbenches, the many metal pieces scattered around the tabletop. He knew Kevin would be around here somewhere, and from how busy they seemed, it was testing time again. He made his way to the Testing Room (as they called it), and he glanced in, scowling immediately at the sight of Stan, talking to one of the many interns. Their eyes met, to which Stan turned to wave at him.

“Oh, hey, Tucker, I didn’t know you were back already,” came the greeting, which Craig replied to with the usual flip of the bird. Stan nodded to the intern, then turned to Craig. “Great to see that you’re still an asshole. I heard from Kyle what happened last mission. It must have been bad if Butters decided to put you out of commission.”

“Unlike what our medic believes, I’m perfectly fine,” Craig scowled. “I know my own body better than anyone else.”

“Sure, that’s why you weren’t in the office for three days.” Stan fiddled around with a small pin in his hand, pulling out another small object that looked like a wireless earpiece from his pocket.

“And you’ve got time to play around with stuff?” Craig eyed the small device, frowning. “Broflovski looked busy back in Comms and here you are playing with toys.”

“Kyle is always busy,” Stan replied absently, attaching the pin up near the collar of his shirt. The pin stuck to the collar easily. “Heard that you got some fresh meat to bring around.”

Talking about the recruits, Craig had almost forgotten about them. One glance and he found Twitch peering at the display cases where the various weapons were, eyeing the few throwing knives there. As for Ike, he was… Where exactly was Ike?

“Shit,” Craig cursed under his breath. The one moment he took his eyes off the recruit and he disappeared into thin air. The thought of the younger Broflovski finding some explosive device laying around made his blood run cold. “Twitch!” he called out to the blonde, who jolted at the sound of his voice, looking around for the source. He jogged closer, eyebrows furrowed in worry. “Have you seen Ike?” Craig asked, scanning the room for the younger Broflovski. He could only see the lab coat-wearing staff and none of the brat.

“No,” Twitch replied. “I think I saw him talking to some of the people in lab coats earlier. Why?”

“Ike? As in Ike Broflovski?” Stan was staring at him in disbelief. “Kyle’s brother? He’s one of the rookies?”

“He won’t be for much longer if he accidentally kills himself with these tools,” he growled. And he _just_ told the boy to be where he could see him. So much for following instructions. A nagging voice at the back of his mind called him a hypocrite. Craig flipped the voice off. Mentally.

At this moment, Kevin walked up to them, tapping his pen on the tablet. As usual, he had that futuristic headset attached to a pair of shades. He was a strange man, but Craig didn’t question his even stranger inventions. “Ah, great. Tucker, just the man I need to see. I have a few modifications done to some pistols, and I need you to—” He faltered at Craig’s glare, looking to Stan for help. “What’s going on?”

“One of the newbies wandered off in your lab,” he explained.

“That would be a problem indeed,” Kevin agreed, pushing a button on his headset. There was a short high-pitched beep, and suddenly Kevin’s voice sounded throughout the room. “Attention everyone, abort current testing simulations. I repeat, abort current testing simulations.” Kevin paused, glancing over at Craig. The noise all around them seemed to stop at once.

“Ike,” Craig supplied, assuming he needed the name of the missing recruit.

“Ike, please come to Testing Room. I repeat, Ike, please come to Testing Room.” Kevin released his hold on the button, nodding to the others, though he threw Twitch a curious look. “Anyway, as I was saying, Tucker, I need you to help me test—” A beep came from his tablet, and he frowned down at it, tapping at it with his pen. Craig could barely see what was on it, but clearly it was nothing good.

Stan was still fiddling around with the earpiece in his hands, putting it in his ear. Craig caught the sight of his hand freezing, his eyebrows knitted together in a frown. “Wha—? Hello?” Stan looked as if he was listening intently, shushing the rest of them. He pulled his collar closer. “Ike? Is that you? What are you doing with the testing device? I—Yes, it’s me, Stan. Do you remember, Kyle’s friend?” Stan paused again, then quirked an eyebrow. “Really? Anyway, you heard the announcement, right?” Another pause. “Yes, come here now. Tucker looks really pissed off.”

His scowl deepened, and he crossed his arms. “Tell him to get his ass over here, now,” Craig demanded. “And he’d better not have touched anything.”

“Dude, what crawled up your ass and died? Just chill, he’s on his way now,” Stan said.

Craig was still impatiently tapping his foot when the door to the room slid open, and Ike peered around the corner. All eyes were on him now, and Ike scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “You have thirty seconds to explain yourself,” Craig said, staring down the shorter boy as he made his way towards them.

“I was just looking around, and then some guy in a lab coat called out for Broflovski, who I assumed was Kyle, but then he saw my ID tag, and he pulled me into another room and handed me these things,” he gestured to the pin, “and told me to say ‘hello’ repeatedly.” Ike shrugged.

Honestly, Craig wasn’t sure if he was mad at his recruit in the first place. All recruits were like this back then. He remembered his own excitement of seeing a gun for the first time, and then he held one in his hands. Letting out a long-drawn sigh, he looked to the ceiling for patience, then back at Ike. “Don’t let it happen again.”

Ike nodded, placing the device in Stan’s outstretched hand. Stan ruffled Ike’s hair with an amused grin, shifting his gaze to Craig. He leaned in close to whisper to the younger boy, but it was loud enough for Craig to hear it. “Agent Tucker over there didn’t used to be such a stick in the mud, but I guess only having guns for friends makes you an old fart faster.”

“I can hear you, asshole.”

“Rude,” Stan retorted. “I’m teaching Ike an important lesson here, about how to find fun in your work.”

“Look here, you—” Craig was interrupted by Kevin clearing his throat, gesturing at their group.

“If you don’t mind, I still have experiments to conduct. Agent Tucker, I received a notice that you are to be exempted from training-related exercises, so unfortunately my modifications tryouts will have to be carried out on a later date.” Really? Butters didn’t have faith in him to behave? Was there anyone who didn’t know about the incident yet? His injury wasn’t even _that_ bad. Kevin turned away from the silently fuming Craig. “Agent Marsh, I need you to get Agent Broflovski here to test out the new equipment, if you don’t mind.” He nodded to himself, before moving off to talk to his interns again.

“Sucks to be you, man.” With that Stan pulled out his phone and moved to the side, presumably calling Kyle.

Craig turned back to his two recruits, rolling his eyes. “All right, I know when I’m not welcome here,” he said, irritation leaking into his voice. “Time to go, kiddos.”


	2. A bad decision, really

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't fight when you're injured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the chapters written up until chap 6-ish, but then there were some edits I had to do in chapter 3 onwards so this is why the uploading schedule is terrible
> 
> Thank you to all who read and gave kudos to this fic!

“Uh, are you sure this is a good idea?”

Craig glowered at Twitch, who was staring at the guns with apprehension. His fingers were digging into his palms, eyes darting to the silver pistol in Craig’s hand. Craig clicked the hammer with his thumb, pointing the muzzle forward at the dark targets hanging in front. Focusing his aim at the middle one, he let out a slow breath, and pulled the trigger.

It was so satisfying to feel recoil of the pistol in his hand again, firing a couple more times until he was left with only the clicking of the trigger. Lowering the gun, he placed it on the table. He turned back to the two recruits, jabbing a thumb at the target. “Got that?” he said, pulling off the earmuffs. “That’s something both of you should have learned during your basic training. It’s important in fieldwork, because you don’t know when you’ll get into a situation where you need to shoot your way out.”

“That’s so cool!” Ike exclaimed, eyeing the pistol on the table. “Can I try next?”

Twitch, on the other hand, was chewing on his fingernails. “Oh man, do we really have to?” he asked. “I’m not good with them.” The blonde gestured to the array of pistols on the side table. Craig recalled an average score of five out of ten under combat for Twitch in the file and shrugged.

“If you can pass normal training level, I don’t see why this should be any different. You guys should be lucky I’m not starting out with moving targets today,” he warned. “If you don’t know how to do anything, let me know. I don’t need you shooting a hole in your foot on the first day.”

Craig had thought the training room was the best way to end the tour after visiting the boring main office. He needed to evaluate their skills soon anyway, to keep a mental note of what they were lacking. The training room was a large area located in the basement, consisting of a large, empty space with training tools and a firing range at the side. Ike showed excitement at the sight of guns, much like how Craig was six years ago. Twitch? Not so much.

Ike was already ready to go, smoothly going through the motions. There wasn’t much to correct about his posture, which Craig was impressed with. A genius, he thought, watching the bullets pierce through the targets, leaving holes where dark paper used to be. They were close enough to the targets on the human silhouette and Craig nodded, jotting down a vague number score on the evaluation form. His performance definitely reflected the nine out of ten for his combat scores.

“Not bad,” he praised, when Ike placed the gun down on the table, walking back towards the other two. “You did better than I’d expected.” Turning to Twitch, he motioned for the blonde to step up to the booth.

The blonde was staring at the gun with something akin to worry, gingerly picking it up as if it would suddenly strike out at him. His fingers were trembling as he loaded it, wincing at the sound of the ‘click’. Craig had a feeling all along that Twitch wasn’t confident in handling guns and had half a mind to stop him, but then he let out a breath through his teeth, face full of calm. His blue eyes focused ahead, hands steady despite the occasional jerk, and he fired once.

“Argh!” Twitch screeched as the bang went off, all the calm he had earlier flying out the metaphorical window. He still had the gun in his hands, clutching it in a death grip. Curiously, he didn’t drop the gun like Craig had expected him to. “Oh God, that was so loud,” he muttered, loud enough for Craig hear. “I have to do this five more times? Jeez.” The blonde seemed much more prepared for the other five shots, although his aim was another story. Most of them did hit the target, and he wondered if Twitch’s first shot had been a lucky one, seeing the hole in the bullseye of the target. The footsteps approached him, and Craig nodded to Twitch. “I suppose it could have been worse,” Craig said, watching the colour return to the blonde’s face. “More training will help with those nerves. Now that I know what I’m working with on the guns’ side, let’s move on to the next part,” he said. “It’s going to be so much fun.”

Pulling off the safety glasses, he gestured for them to place them by the side, standing by the exit of the firing range. “We’ll play with guns another day,” he told Ike, who had been staring at the array of rifles and SMGs on the wall. “Now,” he said with a grin, cracking his knuckles, “I’ll see how well you are at fighting with your fists.”

He led them back into the training room, towards the weapons rack on the wall. The two recruits took their time, clearly surprised at the array of combat weapons on the walls. Battle axes, maces, there was also a scimitar up there. “Of course, we aren’t going to be using any of those,” he said, taking their attentions away from the medieval weaponry. “I’ll let you have these instead.” He pulled two wooden knives from the wall, the blade barely longer than his hand. The blades had been worn down from use, edges smooth. They wouldn’t hurt too bad; at most they would only get splinters if it broke.

Twitch’s eyes were glued to the blades, glimmering with anticipation. “I want to see those knife skills of yours,” Craig called out to Twitch, who looked up in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected Craig to recall his words from earlier. Craig threw the knife to Twitch, who caught it easily. The blonde turned the knife around in his hands, following Craig to the clear area.

Craig could tell that the blonde had experience with knives, watching him turn it around in his hands. Taking a casual stance, Craig held up both hands, the knife gripped loosely in the right. “This is just a training, but I want to see what you can do. Doesn’t mean you can go taking out an eye, all right?” he said, flipping the knife in his hand, then pointed it at Twitch. Sliding it into the side of his belt, Craig knew that he was better without it. “Give it your best shot.”

“Kick his ass, Twitch!” Ike cheered from the side.

The blonde nodded, pointing the wooden knife at him, holding it in a tight grip. He moved into a stance, eyes on Craig, and for a moment, he felt like the eyes of a predator was watching him, watching his every movement intently. Craig was no prey, though. He knew he could easily overpower the smaller man when it came to a clash of power. Waiting was a game that both could play, and the first one who lost concentration was the loser.

The blonde struck first, fast like a snake. His movements were quick, Craig had to admit, but he had predicted the strike, stepping away from the blade. Twitch followed up with another slash, and another, to which Craig narrowed avoided. He could tell when the blonde was going to attack from the slight shift in his stance, the way his feet moved before the blade came swinging at him. It was like a dance, avoiding the slashes from the blonde, stepping away and around. He waited for an opening, the moment the blonde let up from his attack, where he would knock the blade out of his hands.

Surprisingly, Twitch took a few steps back, turning the blade around in his hands, narrowing his eyes at Craig. He seemed to already catch onto what Craig was doing, dodging all his attacks without returning a hit once. They were back to the start again, but now Twitch’s breath was heavy with exertion. Craig didn’t give him get a chance to catch his breath. Closing the distance between them, he aimed a punch to his abdomen. Blue eyes widened in surprise and Twitch hopped back to avoid the brunt of the hit. He leapt to his feet soon after, grip on his blade tightening.

The attack that came at him after was completely different from earlier. The predictable strikes were gone, leaving Craig only with his instinct to dodge. He winced when the blade scraped across the back of his arm. Twitch was like a completely different person earlier, with the practiced slashes and steady steps. Now, it was more of a style that Craig was familiar with when he was younger, when he was out in the streets getting into scuffles with people in the alleyway. Except Twitch was twice as fast, and if Craig hadn’t pulled out the wooden blade from his belt to block the next strike, he might have gotten something worse than a scrape.

His movements were wilder, blue eyes flashing, striking at Craig repeatedly. It took all his concentration to watch where the next attack came from, to dodge or to parry with his own blade. He answered each strike with his own, pushing back harder on the blonde. Hell no, he wasn’t going to lose here. The pounding of blood thumped loudly in his ears, and he flicked sweat from his forehead. The smooth blade whistled past his face once more, and he ducked.

“What the f—” A blade came sailing past his face, and before he knew it, the world went tumbling, and a force sent him crashing onto the ground. His back ached at the pain of hitting the ground hard, and the weight of the blonde above him kept him pinned down. The wind had been knocked out of him from that tackle and he was left catching his breath. Twitch was hovering over him, one arm pinning his shoulder down, the other pressing the blade on his throat. Craig could see his chest heaving, the sweat trickling down the side of his face. That was probably his blade, he noted, feeling nothing but air on his palm. But he wasn’t going to go down easy.

Grabbing at the wrist with the knife, he yanked it away from his exposed throat. Twitch let out a yelp of surprise, and his hold on Craig’s shoulder buckled. Taking this opportunity, Craig flipped them over, using his hand to pin Twitch’s to the ground at the wrist, and the other using his arm. The blonde grunted as he tried to break free, but he wasn’t as strong as Craig, and the earlier fight had left him breathless. He could feel Twitch tense under him.

“Holy shit, is that…blood?”

Craig followed Twitch’s wide-eyed stare to his right arm, where blood had trickled down. Shit, he hadn’t felt it with the adrenaline from the fight, but now he was sure he probably popped a few stitches. He sat up and pulled his sleeve back, sighing at the sight of his reddened bandage. Maybe he hadn’t healed as fast as he thought it would, and he could already hear the angry medic huffing.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know the blades could actually cut you!” Twitch’s eyes were wide in panic, scrambling to look closer at Craig’s wound.  All the focus he had earlier was gone. “I just— I didn’t mean— I’m sorry!”

“Look, it’s just a scratch, nothing serious,” Craig said, standing up to look for something to press against the wound. His head spun when he stood up fully, and he had to lean against the wall to get a hold on himself. He found a towel and held it against the wound, and the pain was returning to him in little pinpricks travelling up his arm. “Ike,” he called out, “help Twitch to his feet. We’re going to the medic’s office.”

He hoped that Butters was in a good mood today.

\-----

Leopold “Butters” Stotch was glaring down at him menacingly, wielding a pair of surgical scissors in his hand. Well, as menacing as the baby-faced medic could look. Back in the medic’s office for the second time that day, here he lay on the examination table again. Craig stared pointedly at a dirt smudge on the opposite wall, attempting to avoid looking directly at the furious medic.

“I took you out of commission so that you would stay out of trouble,” Butters said angrily, snipping away at the bloodied bandages. Craig winced at a particularly hard tug. “And there you went, pullin’ out all the stitches that I’d put in a few days ago. ‘It’s nothing much, let me go back to my work, Stotch’, you said. ‘I won’t accidentally tear them out’, you said. And then, you come stumblin’ into my office all woozy and stuff! No one ever follows the doctor’s orders around here, do they? It’s like you don’t want to get better! Darn you all stubborn pricks to heck!”

It didn’t help that Kenny was leaning on a chair next to them, balancing it precariously on its hind legs. “Now, now, Butters,” he said, tapping away at his phone, “you know how stubborn workaholics are. Right, Tucker?”

“You don’t get a say in this either, Kenny! You’re just as bad!” Butters fired back, peeling back the bandages and tossing them into a nearby bin. “Anyway, just because you have to show the new trainees the ropes around here don’t mean you need to fight them with your fists!”

“Technically, we used knives,” Craig muttered under his breath. The strong smell of antiseptic attacked his nose and not long after, a sharp stinging pain on his arm flared without any warning. He let out a sucked in air through clenched teeth, instantly turning around to shoot a glare at the medic. Butters pressed the damp cotton back onto his wound and the burn in his arm flared up. Craig swore loudly, gripping hard onto the side of the table, digging his fingers into the frame. The medic threw the cotton away and moved to rummage through the nearest cabinet.

“You wouldn’t be feeling this again if you had taken proper care of it!” Butters said, pulling out a needle and a vial containing clear liquid. Craig had to look away, not wanting to see the needle jabbed directly into his skin. A small prick, and blissful numbness spread out along his arm. He could hear a packet being ripped open, and instead focused on the spotless ceiling in front of him while Butters did his work. He knew Butters was done when the second wave of stinging came, and so did his cursing. He got a pat on the shoulder, and Butters was off to wash his hands, Craig assumed from the sound of running water.

Kenny got onto his feet, and footsteps shuffled away towards the doorway. He heard the door squeak open, and the soft voices of his two recruits filtered through.

“You can come in now,” came Kenny’s voice. “Try not to touch anything here. Don’t need you guys getting an infection.”

He could pick out Twitch’s voice among the rest, from the way worry seeped into every word. “This is my fault,” he was saying. “I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“You don’t got to apologise. Craig just needs to stop bein’ an idiot,” Butters said, earlier anger dissipated. “He’s smart, but when it comes to himself, he’s just not thinkin’ right. And when a certified medic tells you to not to aggravate your wound, you should listen to him.”

Craig presented his middle finger in Butters’ general direction, letting his arm fall not a moment later from lethargy. He pushed himself up with his good arm, ignoring the silent offers of help from the others. His arm felt numb from the earlier anaesthesia, the bruises he got in the earlier fight throbbing dully every time he moved. Butters came back into his view, beckoning to Kenny.

“Help me get him into a bed,” Butters said. “It’s better if he lay around for a while instead of going around tearin’ out the stitches again.”

“I’m fine,” Craig insisted. “I still have a job to do.”

“Right,” Butters said, unconvinced, “and so do I. Now stop bein’ such a stubborn prick.”

Pushing away Kenny’s arm, Craig moved to the bed on his own. He had experienced enough humiliation of being brought to the medic’s office while leaning on Twitch and Ike for support after a knife fight with wooden practice knives and he didn’t need them thinking that he was weak. Hell, he was the agency’s best sniper, for Christ’s sake. Letting out another frustrated sigh, he crossed his arms, careful to not put too much tension on his injury.

“So, you’re the one who put Tucker into his place?” Kenny had sidled up to Twitch, who took a step back from the other man. “That man doesn’t go easy on anyone. What’s your name, newbie? I’m Kenny McCormick, but you can call me yours anytime.”

Craig was amused at Twitch’s look of confusion, the scrunching of his nose as he gave Kenny a puzzled stare. “Richard Cox,” he replied, albeit hesitantly. A snort of laughter came from Kenny, who held out his hand for Twitch to shake.

“Nice to meet you, Agent Cox,” he replied, grin far too wide in amusement. Twitch took the hand tentatively, watching Kenny with apprehension. “And,” Kenny said, after holding Twitch’s stare and hand (for a second too long, in Craig’s opinion), he let go and turned to Ike, “you must be the younger Broflovski. Kyle and I are friends, but you’re probably more familiar with Stan, right?” Ike nodded, and Kenny hooked his arm on Ike’s shoulder, tugging him away towards the other side of the room, chatting animatedly. Craig could catch snippets of their conversation, but he didn’t want to know about the older Broflovski’s life history, so he tuned them out.

Twitch (more specifically, his hands) came into his view. His nails were digging into his palms again. When he looked up at the blonde, he noticed that Twitch had his gaze fixed on the ground. “Really sorry about that,” the blonde said, gesturing vaguely to Craig’s bandaged arm. “Although, I have to agree with Dr. Stotch. You shouldn’t be moving around like that if you have that bad of an injury that needs stitches.” He threw his hands up into the air, then crossed his arms, fingers tapping away on his arm. He still wasn’t looking at Craig.

Ignoring the comment, Craig asked, “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

The steady rhythm of his fingers faltered. Craig could see the chewed edges on his short fingernails and the light, thin scars marking the back of his hands. “During training,” Twitch replied at last, and Craig knew that wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear, and the blonde knew that too. “Honestly, I don’t know what came over me at that moment. I haven’t fought so hard in a long time.”

“Me neither,” Craig admitted. “But, you were good.”

“But not as good as you were,” Twitch replied, a hint of a smile on his lips. As an afterthought, he added, “sir." There was a moment of awkward silence between them. "I hope you’ll get better soon.” Before Craig could say anything else, Twitch stood up and left the room.

Laying back on the bed with not else much to do, he let his mind run freely, ignoring Kenny’s eyes on him. The scenes from the earlier fight resurfaced in his mind. Twitch had looked unremarkably simple when Craig first saw him, but when he was fighting, Craig had the feeling that the blonde was more experienced than he let on. There was no way that the agency would teach such a reckless way of fighting. He was intriguing, and he wanted to know more about this strange blonde, and those blue eyes that had watched him so intently…

\-----

“And he’s out like a light.” Kenny slid into the seat beside Butters, watching the medic fill up the report, tapping at the paper with his pen in thought. There were a lot of people coming in with major injuries these few days. He thought he saw someone unfamiliar in the corridor earlier, the brief glimpse of crutches disappearing around the corner. “Busy day?” he asked, peering at the report. Most of the words and terms that Butters wrote were unfamiliar to him. He leaned back on his seat, balancing himself on the hind two legs of the chair.

“You’ll fall one day,” Butters said, looking up from his writing with a frown. “Also, don’t you have work to do?”

“Not until later tonight. Got to be the third wheel to the Dream Team.” Kenny grimaced. “Again.”

Butters chuckled. “I don’t think Stan and Kyle are that bad,” he said, putting a finger to his chin. “They work well together, but I guess it’s a little awkward when it’s just with them two.” He stacked the paper together in a file, opening a drawer and slid it in. Kenny landed the chair on the ground with a thud, leaning forward onto the table.

“You should take a break,” he suggested. “Taking care of people all day must be exhausting.”

“I can’t leave the medic’s office unattended. That would be irresponsible of me, especially when there’s already a patient here.”

“Well, Scott’s on his way here. He can take over for one hour, at least,” Kenny said, glancing down at his phone. Footage from the corridor cameras was displayed on his screen of a man turning around a corner. “Let’s go get a coffee together downtown. I know a quiet place that has delicious cakes that you might like. Just the two of us.”

“I… Just…two of us?” Butters gave Kenny a look of hesitation. “Gee, Kenny… I don’t know… It sounds awfully like a date…” He rubbed his knuckles together, a habit that Kenny noticed Butters did when he was nervous. Reaching out, he pulled Butters’ hands apart with his, thumbing the ridges of his knuckles. He was going to rub them raw one day, Kenny mused. Baby blue eyes widened.

Kenny pulled his hands back instantly, feeling Butters’ stare on him. He barked out a loud laugh. “Just kidding! I’ll get you one if you’re too busy to go,” he said, standing up and stretching. He didn’t catch the disappointment that flashed briefly on Butters’ face. He waved the idea off casually. “I just thought that maybe it would do you some good to get fresh air.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea.” Surprised, Kenny looked back at the medic, who had a shy smile on his face. Usually, Butters rejected his invitation. “It’s going to be my break time soon. I’ll meet you outside my office after I do one last check on Craig.”

Speechless, Kenny could only nod, watching as Butters packed up the rest of his desk, moving to hover over Craig’s sleeping form. He hadn’t expected the medic to actually agree, but it was a pleasant surprise all the same.

“Maybe you should stop coming here so often,” Butters added, picking up a spray bottle. He wiped down the table again, then looked back to Kenny. “Do you think they sell cupcakes with sprinkles?”

Kenny grinned, replying, “Of course.”

Butters returned the smile with a brighter one. “Great! Let’s go!”


	3. Training Montage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Craig has to deal with many things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I actually started this in Feb  
> Let me know if I need to add any tags tho

_There was only darkness all around. The musty smell of the abandoned warehouse was tinged with the metallic scent of blood. He evened out his breathing, one hand gripped tightly on the shoulder of his friend, the other on a pistol. He couldn’t tell how many were out there, but most of them had passed by, judging from the silence. Clyde wasn’t doing so good, face pale and barely able to keep his eyes open._

_Carefully, he shifted so that he could see out through the gap of the door. The area was clear; there wasn’t anyone outside, judging from the empty room. His empty gun was abandoned somewhere outside and the one he had in his hand held three bullets._

_Clyde had been shot in the leg earlier, nothing serious, but if he didn’t get him out here soon, he might just… Craig didn’t want to think about it. There wasn’t much to work with, but he had tied it up with a cloth earlier. The fabric was darkening every second that passed, which was another layer of stress for Craig. They were still prowling out there, looking for them both._

_The door suddenly flung open, flooding his vision with bright light. Through it, he could see the glint of a golden gun and the conceited smirk of_ —

Craig found himself staring up at the ceiling, heart beating wildly in his chest. With a groan, he sat up. His arm was throbbing again, one of the reasons why he hadn’t slept well in the first place. Swearing under his breath, he searched blindly in the dark for his phone. It was still dark out and his phone confirmed that it was barely four in the morning.

Shivering, Craig slid his phone back onto the table. He had left the window open before he turned in for the night and now, the chilly morning air had filled his room. It would take too much effort for him to get up to close the window, but it was impossible to go back to sleep now, the longer he spent staring into darkness. He weighed his options.

With a sigh, he pulled himself reluctantly out of bed and popped some painkillers. He might as well go for an early morning run and head for work after.

\-----

The chilly temperature had carried over to the late morning, and Craig had his gaze on the street outside, watching the pedestrians without much interest. The trees were shedding leaves like no tomorrow, hinting towards an early winter. With a yawn, Craig turned back to the recruits.

He had implemented a training routine not unlike the ones he experienced as a trainee himself before he was selected to be a field agent here at the Agency. Well, with a few minor modifications to the list to suit each rookie. Ike lay panting heavily on the ground, one arm thrown over his eyes. He had the skills, but he didn’t have the stamina to match, something Craig had noticed during their daily run around the city.

On the other hand, Twitch was able to keep up with most of it. Craig glanced over to where Twitch was leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

He thought that Twitch, who had been oddly distant despite his pleasant disposition, had opened up a little more since their knife fight, but now that he thought about it, he didn’t really know much about him. Aside from that, he wasn’t bad to look at either. Craig quickly stuffed that thought into the recesses of his mind.

“Sir? Is there something on my face?”

Twitch’s voice was right next to him, causing him to blink in surprise at the close proximity. He was close enough to see the light freckles that dusted his face, lashes framing his blue eyes. If he looked closer, he could tell that there were flecks of green in them. He took a step back to put some distance between them.

“No, it’s nothing.” Craig quickly moved his gaze onto Ike, who was still down on the ground. “You’ve been keeping up surprisingly well with the training.”

“I’ve done some jogging of my own on the weekends,” Twitch replied. “It helps me when I need to clear my head.”

“A lot on your mind?” Craig asked.

“Yeah.” That was the only answer he received, then Twitch turned away to pick up his towel. “I think I’ve had enough rest.” He wiped the last beads of sweat off his face. “Time to finish up the last set.”

Pulling out his phone from his pocket, he swiped through the messages. There was an update on training from Wendy and a reminder from the Gadget Lab to return at a later date for weapons assessment. His fingers hovered over the last message below, staring down at the ridiculous string of emojis and the numerous unread messages. The dream from this morning flashed into his mind, and he slid his phone back into his pocket.

“Hey, Craig! It’s good to see you back here again.”

He looked up to see Bebe at the doorway. She stepped into the room with her heels clacking on the floor, eyeing the two recruits curiously. “Morning,” Craig greeted with a small wave.

“I heard that you got stuck with recruit training,” she said sympathetically. “How’s your arm?”

“So did everyone else,” Craig muttered under his breath. He cleared his throat. “It’s just a scratch. What are you doing here?”

“Wendy told me that there are some new recruits that need bodysuits, so I made some new ones with upgrades. I need to borrow the boys for a fitting session.”

“Sure, when do you need them?”

“The only time I have this week would be later in the afternoon. Come by the Gadget Lab after lunch,” she said, scribbling on a post-it note. Ripping it out, she held it out to Craig. “I made some modifications to your belt too, so come along with them.”

“Noted,” he said, taking the post-it note. He glanced down at her neat cursive of ‘Gadget Lab, 2:00’ on the pink piece of paper.

“Don’t forget, all right? It would be a pain to find time in my schedule again, what with the increase in workload these days…” She tucked the golden curls behind her ear, smiling softly. “Hey Craig, I really appreciate what you did for Clyde.” Before Craig could say anything to her, Bebe’s phone rang loudly, interrupting the moment. She apologised before walking out of the room to pick up the call.

Craig slouched back against the wall and let out a sigh.

\-----

Bebe greeted them in the Gadget Lab with a pair of safety goggles nestled in her golden curls, clipboard in hand. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said, tapping on the clipboard with a pen. “Follow me and I’ll show you to my secret lair.”

She led the way through the busy laboratory, taking a path towards an elevator hidden to the side. The door opened automatically for them and they followed Bebe in. A light melody was playing in the background, which sounded familiar to one from a menu of a game. Bebe instantly busied herself with her phone, and so did Craig.

“Are all scientists this dramatic?” Ike whispered loudly to Twitch, loud enough for Craig to hear him. And apparently Bebe too, as she turned around to smile at him sweetly, sliding her phone back into her pocket.

“Honey, I’m not _just_ a scientist. I’m fashion,” Bebe replied. A loud ‘ding’ announced their arrival to the selected floor, and they made their way through the corridor. They stopped by a glass door with a plate engraved with ‘BEBE’S OFFICE’. Bebe tapped a password in onto the panel, which beeped and flashed green. The glass door slid open.

The room was filled with rows and rows of clothes racks, making it look entirely like a retail store. On the wall, there was a large display of belts, shoes and other sorts of loose accessories. A table to the side was covered entirely in paper, although on further inspection, Craig could spot a laptop buried in the mess. There was also a door that led into Bebe’s self-proclaimed ‘fashion chamber’, or whatever she had said. Craig hadn’t pay much attention when she had been explaining the concept.

“Keeping in mind of what you expect a spy suit to be, I’ve also installed a few more useful functions that will assist you in the field. Generally, all the suits I’ve made are highly durable, stretchy and resistant to many elements, such as fire, water, and so on. Of course, I can make adjustments if necessary. I can give you a demonstration of its durability if you want. I have a flamethrower in the back.”

“An actual flamethrower?” Ike asked excitedly.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have the time for that today.” She pulled out two sets of clothes from the rack, handing them to the trainees. “Don’t look so disappointed,” Bebe said with a laugh at Ike’s downcast expression at the sight of sportswear. “This will blend in with the crowd better than any skin-tight suit. I prioritise stealth over any weird fantasies you have about spies in movies. Wearing only a skin-tight suit would just make you stand out more in a crowd.”

Ike still looked unconvinced, although Twitch already accepted the clothes from Bebe, which consisted of a simple sweater and loose shorts, as well as a bodysuit. “It doesn’t look any different from what I own,” Twitch commented, running his hand on the surface. “But the material does feel different.”

“Of course. I designed the material with Kevin’s assistance, which is a trade secret of ours. I managed to integrate the material into various types of clothing, like jumpsuits, button-down shirts, formal wear… Anything you need, I’ll have it made for you in a week, give or take a few days.” She pulled a roll of measuring tape from her pocket and sent them a blinding smile. “Now, please strip.”

Ah, there it was. Craig had been wondering when she would start going into business mode. He settled into the chair behind her desk, peering at the piles of paper. It seemed like a bunch of scribbled numbers that Bebe had noted down and he lost interest entirely.

“Um, is there anywhere that we can change?” Twitch asked, glancing around the room nervously.

Ike had already taken off his shirt and was in the middle of pulling on the tight suit. “It’s just us around here, Twitch,” he said, voice muffled by the fabric. “It’s not like Bebe will be judging us, will she?”

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll go around the back to pick up a few things.” Bebe waved to them, walking towards her ‘design chamber’. “Don’t take too long, though!” she added, hand on the door. “I might see an unnecessary nipple.”

Twitch moved into one of the further corners of the room to change. Even though there was a distance between them, Craig guessed the reason that Twitch had been so reluctant to change in front of them was due to the alarming number of scars he had on his back. Maybe there were some in the front too, which might be the reason why Twitch had been less willing to talk about himself. Craig wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it too, if it were him.

He realised he was staring again. At some point, Twitch was going to demand why he could feel eyes boring into his skull, and Craig couldn’t just bring up that he had just only been watching him now and again. He hadn’t heard anything about the blonde before he joined the Agency, and Craig would have remembered someone with such exceptional skills with a knife. The agent known as Richard Cox was shrouded in mystery, and Craig needed to know more.

His eyes drifted to the wall when he realised that there were a few familiar photographs pinned up. He scowled when he recognised one from a mission a few months back, where he had to infiltrate a fancy dress party and was forced to trade his favourite blue chullo for slicked back hair. The frown on his face then matched with his now, though his glare softened at the sight of Clyde, who was sporting a large grin with his arm around Craig’s shoulder.

“It looks like your prom photo,” Ike commented, startling him. When did that brat sneak up on him? He looked comfortable in his clothes, at least. Bebe had a good eye for size measurements. “Well, a very fancy prom, at least. You look very different with your hair like that. Maybe like an actual James Bond. A grumpy one.”

“Right? The clothes make the man, I always like to say.” Bebe had returned at some point, holding out a belt to Craig. He accepted it, feeling the smooth leather under his fingers. “I fixed up your belt so you can strap at least two pistols on you and a whole load more of ammunition, with a snap-on, snap-off kind of feature. Figured it might come in useful.”

“Thanks,” Craig said. “Appreciate it.”

She looked at the photograph. “Do you mind if we talk in the back?” she asked quietly. Without another word, Craig followed her into the back, leaving Ike to stare at the photographs on the wall and Twitch somewhere among the clothing racks.

When Craig closed the door behind him, Bebe immediately addressed the topic in mind. “I didn’t get a chance to say it properly earlier, but I’m grateful to you for saving Clyde. With how the last mission went, I thought at least one of you would have...”

“I’m… How is he?” Craig asked quietly. The last time he had seen his friend was when his friend was being transported off to the hospital with blood staining most of his clothes, seeping through the makeshift bandage Craig had used. He had received the information of where his friend had been staying at the hospital, but hadn’t gone to see him. Everytime he stood outside the building, he changes his mind at the last minute and turned back.

“He’s been discharged from the hospital last week. Haven’t you been to visit him yet?”

“No.” Craig avoided looking at Bebe, turning to leave the room. Even with Bebe’s assuring tone, the scene of his friend’s broken form flashed in his mind. “But I’m glad he’s recovering.”

A comforting hand was placed on his shoulder, but Craig shrugged it off. “You know that he doesn’t blame you for what happened, Craig,” Bebe said.

“But I do.” With that, he left the room.

\-----

Craig knew he shouldn’t have left the rookies behind, but he needed a place to think, and where better than his favourite brooding spot?

The firing range was deserted, which suited Craig perfectly. Picking up one of the pistols from the selection, he took a few cartridges and headed to a lane. Sliding on the earmuffs, he loaded the gun and fired rapidly. Bullets whistled through the paper targets, leaving multiple holes behind. The gun clicked a few times, indicating that it was empty.

Even while frustrated, he had managed to hit almost all the targets with the exception of one. Clyde had ended up being shot in the leg because Craig hadn’t managed to shoot the gun out of that man’s hand, the one shot that actually mattered in that moment. If he had been more calm, more level-headed, maybe Clyde wouldn’t have gotten hurt in the first place.

Slamming the empty gun on the table, he ignored the slight twinge from his arm. He knew that there was no point in dwelling in the past, but he couldn’t help but blame himself for not reacting sooner to the ambush. Even though Comms was offline, they still could have heard those people coming through the door. It had been an easy enough mission for them and they had let their guard down, alright.

Craig was startled when something brushed against his shoulder, whipping around with the gun in hand, pointing it at the offender. Twitch flinched back at his reaction, eyes wide. Sliding the earmuffs back down his neck, Craig sighed, placing the gun on the table. He made sure the safety was on before turning back to Twitch. “Don’t do that,” he warned.

“I did call out a few times, sir,” Twitch replied, watching the gun warily. “Are you… okay?”

“No, it’s nothing. Any reason you’re down here?” he asked, running a hand through his hair. Craig hadn’t been expecting the rookie to be here, not after he had just left them with Bebe.

“Well, I was thinking of getting some practice with shooting and, uh, Bebe said that you’ll probably be here.” Twitch fumbled with the pair of safety goggles in his hand. “I’m still not that great with guns, so I was hoping that you could teach me how to shoot one properly. But if it’s not a good time, I can always… come back again?”

Craig sighed, weighing his options. He could tell Twitch that he wasn’t in the mood for it, or actually do his job and teach the man how to hold a gun. The latter option seemed better for distracting him from all the messy emotions rolling around in his being. “All right, put on your goggles. Come here,” he said, gesturing to the next shooting lane. He set aside the only full cartridge left, then held the empty gun to Twitch.

The blonde looked at him, then down at the gun in his hand. “Show me how you hold it normally,” Craig prompted. Twitch took the gun from his hand and held it up to aim at the target. He could already tell where he was going wrong. “Look, you’re not supporting it properly,” he said, moving to adjust Twitch’s hands. They tensed under his touch so briefly that Craig thought he imagined it. Plucking Twitch’s left hand off his holding position, he moved them into place. “Hold your wrists in position and don’t move, or the bullet will fly off-target.”

When he turned to look at the blonde rookie, Twitch’s eyes flickered back onto the target. “Keep your eyes on the target, keep your wrists in position.” Taking a few steps back, Craig slid the earmuffs back on, gesturing for Tweek to put his on too. Keeping an eye on his posture, Craig waved over to him. “Load the gun and shoot those targets. We’re not aiming for a miracle here, you just need to hit it.”

Twitch nodded as he faced forth, aiming the gun at the target. Six swift rounds later, Craig motioned for Twitch to put the gun down, impressed by how all the bullets hit close to the targets. He half-expected the bullets to miss the paper completely, but he supposed that he should have believed in his rookie. “Good work,” he praised, giving the blonde a pat on the back. “If you keep that in mind, you’ll get used to using one.”

“I see. Thanks,” Twitch said. “I’ll keep your advice in mind.” He moved to pick up a new cartridge on the side, looking more and more puzzled as he found each one to be empty. His gaze shifted to the target next to the one he was aiming at, eyes widening at the sight of the numerous holes in the target sheet. He seemed like he wanted to question it, but decided against it.

His phone buzzed, and he saw that he had received a text from Wendy. “Continue with your practice,” Craig said, sliding his phone into his pocket. “The boss needs to see me.”


	4. Put to the test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion with a friend and a test of teamwork.

“Testaburger? You wanted to see me?”

“Take a seat, Agent Tucker,” Wendy said, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk.

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been into Wendy’s new office yet. Previously it had belonged to the recon squad, which had been dissolved a year back. Now, the room had been cleared out and refurbished. A large map of the city was pinned up on the wall, her desk was pristine and neat with the gold-plated tag sitting on the edge, engraved with ‘WENDY TESTABURGER, CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER’. Fancy. He let her know as much.

“I told them that it was unnecessary, but it’s not something to complain about,” she said with a wry smile. “I want to have a talk with you about the progress of your training.”

“I’ve submitted the reports,” Craig said, eyeing the familiar files on the desk, “as you probably have seen already.”

“Yes, I have.” Wendy pushed the files to the side, then laced her fingers together. Her violet eyes gleamed with amusement. “I want to know your opinion on them, not the statistics that you’ve provided in there. Your personal opinion, if you will.”

“To start, if Broflovski’s kid brother gets more experience in the field, I believe he’ll be one of the best agents here,” he said. “I didn’t expect much from him when I first saw him, but through training this past month, I can tell he’s slowly getting used to it. On the other hand, Twitch — I mean, Richard has good skills in close combat, but not really much on the longer range weapons. But, he is quick on his feet and reacts well to situations.”

“That’s good to hear. I was thinking of holding a field exercise somewhere outside of the city, it will also act as a general test of working together as a cohesive unit. I’ll be assigning you someone from Comms to join your team, who has been training under Commander Broflovski for the past week. He’s new to the Comms unit, but he has previous experience relevant to the field.”

Craig let out a groan. “A team of rookies against a team of our field agents? They’re going to get their asses wrecked.”

She raised a brow at him. They held the stares for a while, then Craig reluctantly caved. “Fine, I’ll make sure that they don’t get their asses completely wrecked.”

Wendy only laughed at his dry reply. “I’m sure you’ll handle it with no problem, Agent Tucker. I’ll need to receive Dr Stotch’s approval of your wounds before I can settle on a time for this test to be carried out,” she said, handing him a file. Yet another manila folder to add to the growing pile on his desk. Great. “Also, the recruits should not know that this is a practice test to ensure I’m able to assess their true abilities. Mention it as a ‘mission’ of some sort, be creative. I’ll leave the explanation to you.”

\-----

Butters had signed his form without a fuss and now Craig was off to meet up with his team of rookies. Briefly glancing through the file, he groaned when he realized that the ‘mission’ was going to be carried out at the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city, which was an hour’s drive away. They would be taking one of the Agency’s vans there, with the Comms officer doing surveillance using the equipment installed in the van. There wasn’t much details printed in his notes, just the basic outline of the test and where the location was. He was to oversee everything as backup using a paintball-loaded sniper rifle, and—

“Craig! You dumbass!”

Before he realised what happened, a blur launched itself at him when he turned the corner and pure instinct made him hold a hand out to stop it. “What the— Clyde?” Craig had been actively avoiding him since the incident, but he hadn’t known that Clyde would be at Headquarters today. A certain feeling he quickly placed as guilt crept up from within at the sight of his friend.

Clyde was now gripping his shirt in a tight hold, eyes blazing furiously. “Why were you avoiding me? I’ve heard everything from Bebe. You’re such an  _ idiot _ ! Stop thinking that what happened was your  _ fault _ !” Clyde shook him harder as he raised his voice.

Craig couldn’t get any words past his lips, avoiding his friend’s gaze. Not that he had any excuses left at this point.

“Look,” Clyde growled, jabbing a finger into Craig’s chest, “you did the best you could in that situation and we managed to get out alive. You could have left me behind but you didn’t.” He relaxed his grip and sucked in a deep breath. “Craig, I…” To his surprise, Clyde pulled him into a tight hug. “You idiot… I should be thanking you...” He could feel his friend shaking and settled for awkwardly patting Clyde on the back.

“I-I’m sorry,” Craig mumbled. “There was a lot for me to think about.”

“Then don’t,” Clyde sniffled. He pulled back, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Stop thinking that you have to protect me every time. I have been through and survived the hellish training beside you to be a field agent, and I passed. So quit being an idiot and think that it was all on you.”

The month that he spent avoiding Clyde had been rough, thinking all the while that Clyde had blamed him. He knew that his friend wouldn’t have thought this way, but lying in bed, awake at early hours of the morning made all his thoughts messed up. For a long while, he had thought them to be true.

“So, what were you up to when you weren’t visiting me?”

“I got assigned to rookie duties.”

Clyde let out a shaky laugh. “That must have been hell for you, huh?” he said. “You were never good with dealing with other people.”

“Stotch was breathing down my neck, too,” Craig agreed. “So, uh, how long have you been back?”

“I only got back to work last week,” Clyde replied. He paused, wrenching his hands. He seemed to be at a loss of words, which was unusual for the brunet. “I just submitted my resignation letter.”

Craig’s gaze immediately fell to Clyde’s leg, the one that had gotten shot. He hadn’t noticed the brunet’s slight limp earlier and only now he realised that his friend was going to have trouble out in the field. That was a perfectly good reason for him to quit, but still, it made Craig’s heart ache for his friend.

Clyde scratched at his temple sheepishly. “After what happened last mission, I don’t think I’ll be doing field work anymore, not with this leg anyway. It got a little too real for me, and I haven’t been able to stop shaking at the sound of a gun.” His hand clutched at his arm a little too tightly. “I guess PC Principal wasn’t kidding when he said that we might give up our lives in our duties.”

“Oh.” Craig didn’t know how to reply, but he understood that feeling. He remembered the sickening feeling back then, hauling the unconscious Clyde out of that building, guns empty of bullets, not knowing if they were going to survive. When he closed his eyes, he could almost smell the musty air of the abandoned building, hear the deafening bangs of guns around him, and the loud silence on his earpiece. The scene that constantly haunted his dreams.

He opened his eyes, looking over to where Clyde was now leaning against the wall of the corridor. Clyde had been his partner for the three years he had been a field agent, but they had been friends for far longer. Craig knew that this was the best choice for his friend who wore his heart on his sleeve, but he couldn’t help the twinge in his heart at the thought of them not being partners anymore. Craig wouldn’t say it out loud, but he would miss Clyde’s constant chatter and his boisterous laughter.

“Did you know Kyle is now the Comms Commander? I guess my application got approved so quickly because they didn’t have enough people.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but then his thoughts came to a sudden halt at Clyde’s words. “Wait, Comms? You applied to Comms?” Clyde… was staying?

The spreading grin on Clyde’s face told Craig everything. “Got’cha good, didn’t I? I may be scared to go back out there in danger, but you’re my best pal! I still want to have your back, so I can do that by being your eye in the sky! Or that is what Kyle said? I’m not so sure…”

“I can’t believe it…” Craig sighed, but he couldn’t help the smile on his face. “You dumbass. You could have left this dangerous shit behind and go live like a normal person.”

“We’re best bros, and best bros don’t leave each other behind.” Clyde held out a fist to Craig.

“Best bros,” Craig agreed, meeting Clyde’s fist with his own.

\-----

“So, Craig…” Clyde started, after they settled down in the conference room, waiting for the two newbies to arrive. “How has it been between you and Thomas?”

“Clyde, we’re not together anymore.” Craig shifted uncomfortably in his seat, busying himself by flipping through the file. This start to the conversation was going into dangerous territory, and Craig hoped that Clyde would just let it go.

“Shit man, what happened?” Oh no, Craig knew where it was going and he would rather avoid that particular subject. He closed the file, turning towards Clyde, but he was unable to keep eye contact with his friend.

“Look, I really don’t want to talk about it,” Craig said, ignoring the way Clyde was looking at him. “We have our differences and decided that we’re better off as friends. I’ve decided to focus on my work now.” He could feel Clyde’s stare burning into his side.

“But—”

“This sounds like something I don’t want to be a part of.” Twitch’s voice came from the doorway. Turning around, Craig saw the blonde peering in. Ike was right behind him, peeping curiously.

“Sit down, we have a lot to talk about today,” Craig said, ignoring the comment. “And Clyde?” Craig mimed a shushing action when Clyde looked at him, earning himself a pout from his friend. Twitch took the seat opposite his, and Ike’s was next to Twitch. “All right,” he started. “Testaburger gave me the details of an upcoming mission.”

Instantly, two pairs of eyes lit up, watching him earnestly. “Already?” Clyde exclaimed. “I’ve only been with Comms for, like, a week.”

"Hell yeah!" Ike grinned. "Finally, we get some action!"

Craig cleared his throat. "First, introductions. This is Clyde, my previous field partner but now he’ll be acting as our Comms officer for this mission. Clyde, these are the two rookies, Ike Broflovski and Richard Cox. I will not be playing an active part in the mission, but I will be backup. So, Agent Cox, Agent Broflovski," he said, turning to the two, "your mission will be to retrieve data in the form of a USB, which is located in an abandoned warehouse about five miles out from the outskirts of the city. According to the data gathered by the intel unit, there will be few guards roaming about, but they are highly skilled. This is an infiltration mission, so keep chaos to a minimum."

He turned to Clyde. "Clyde, you will be in charge of guiding these agents when they find their way into the building, and assisting you will be-"

"Me." Kenny grinned, sliding into the seat next to Craig, slinging an arm around him. Kenny leaned in close enough for Craig to feel his breath on his ear. "Wendy told me to go along in case anything goes south. Also, I hear Stan is going to be involved," he whispered. "Hope your boytoys don't get their asses wrecked."

Craig pushed the blonde's arm off him, rolling his eyes. Kenny leaned back against his seat, sending a knowing wink Craig’s way. "Anyway," he continued, as if he never heard what Kenny had said, "here are the details.” He pulled out a blueprint from his file, laying it on the table. The other four around the table leaned forward to get a closer look. “The warehouse may be old, but it will be well-guarded. Our sources,” Craig glanced at Kenny, “say that there may be a few guards with high level of combat skill. You are highly advised to avoid all combat. In our agency, we don’t shoot to kill.”

“So, we’re allowed to knock them out?” Twitch asked, eyes scanning the document. “Or incapacitate them?”

“Sure, go for it, but it’s highly likely they’ll call for backup, so avoid conflict at all costs,” Craig lied. “The USB is your main priority. It contains sensitive information regarding the agency, so your goal is to retrieve and return without alerting anyone.” He slid the map out from his folder, smoothing it flat on the table. He pulled the cap of the marker out with his teeth. Circling an alley one street, he said, “This is where our surveillance van will be parked, and I will be here.” Craig drew a cross on one of the buildings opposite the warehouse. “You will go in from here, where the patrol will finish at eight p.m. sharp. Clyde will send you more information about the USB. It has a tracker on it, so Clyde will be able to tell you where it will be located.”

“Leave it to me!” Clyde grinned.

“All right. We’re carrying out the mission on Friday, and we leave at eighteen hundred hours.”

\-----

Craig held out two guns to the recruits. “Here, take these,” he said. Twitch and Ike took them, tucking them into the holster on their sides. He hadn’t told them those were paintball guns, but he assumed they wouldn’t be using much of these anyway.

“So, we sneak in, steal the USB, and sneak out?” Ike asked. “That’s sounds like a job for a thief.”

Slinging the rifle case over his shoulder, Craig smirked. “Well, if a common thief can do it, you should be able to do it too.” He glanced out the window. “We’re reaching the alley soon. Make sure your headsets are working.”

“ _ Hearing you guys loud and clear, over _ .” Clyde’s muffled voice sounded from the speaker. “ _ Clyde here reporting for duty, sir, over. _ ”

“Clyde, these aren’t walkie talkies, and we aren’t nine,” Craig said. “Be serious.”

“ _ Serious is my middle name! Anyway, I got the tracking system working. The USB is definitely in that warehouse. _ ”

Craig nodded. He turned to the two recruits. “McCormick went ahead to scout out the warehouse,” he said, tucking two pistols inside his jacket. They snapped onto the belt easily. “The guard patrol would be finishing their route in thirty minutes, so use this opportunity to enter the building.”

The van came to a stop and Craig peered out the window. “We’re here.” 

Stepping out of the van, Craig nodded to the two. He tapped his communication device off. Without another word, he made his way down the street, glancing around and tugging his blue chullo down further. He wouldn’t put it past Wendy to have surveillance set up in this area to watch out for them. He recognised some of the people from their agency hovering around the area, watching from the shadows of the buildings.

He made his way up the building through the fire escape, cursing at his breathlessness when he reached the top. “Stupid ladder,” he muttered to himself, sliding the rifle case across the roof floor. Unzipping the case, he quickly assembled his beloved sniper, sliding on the night vision scope. While he was screwing it firmly into place, he glanced down the dark street, though he couldn’t see much. He set it up to watch over the warehouse, easily identifying Twitch and Ike making their way down the street.

Bebe should be complimented for their simple clothes designed with enough pockets to stash ammunition and everything else in, as well as the lightweight material she had been working with. From the roof, they looked nothing more than night-time joggers going about their usual route, although in this particular area, it would be highly suspicious with the empty streets.

The sound of light footsteps came up behind him, and he instantly pulled out his pistol from inside his jacket, pointing it at the intruder. Kenny held his hands up, looking calm even with the barrel pointing at his forehead. “McCormick,” he greeted, relaxing his grip on his pistol. He snapped on the safety and tucked it back into the holster in his jacket.

“Still quick to draw the gun. Glad to see your skills haven’t become rusty.”

“This isn’t a paintball gun. I could have blown your head off,” Craig warned. Kenny moved to sit down beside Craig, pulling out a monitor from the sling bag he was carrying. He set it on the floor beside the sniper rifle.

“You love me too much for that,” Kenny replied casually, pulling out wires and connecting them to his laptop. He tapped a few buttons, then flipped the switch on the monitor. “Thought you might want to see what’s going on in there, after they enter the building.” The screen flickered with a fuzz, then an empty hallway showed up on screen. Kenny tapped away at his phone, until he landed on a footage of Twitch and Ike crouched in an alley, watching the guard at the door.

Craig returned to his sniper, tapping on his communication device. “I’m in position,” Craig said. He was amused at the cartoonish mask that the ‘guard’ at the door was wearing. Did they buy them at the Halloween store? “What’s going on?”

“ _ It looks like someone has tipped them off to our arrival _ ,” came Clyde’s voice. “ _ They’ve rounded back again and left a guard at the door _ .” Craig could see the guard stretch, checking his watch every now and then. “Wait for an opportunity, I’ll see what I can do.”

And here he thought they weren’t going to involve him. Craig let go of the button, turning to Kenny with a frown. The blonde had his back against the wall of the building, laptop on his lap. “Stan said you needed to be tested too, so he asked for a favour from Wendy,” Kenny said, pulling out a thermos from the bag. “Coffee?”

Despite the cold winter air biting at his skin, Craig declined. He returned to his rifle, listening to what was going on in their communication channel. Clyde was suggesting for them to knock out the guard and one of them could disguise their way in with it. Using his scope, Craig could see a black radio on the guard’s belt. When he scanned the surroundings, he couldn’t see anyone else.

“Clyde, how’s the perimeter?” he asked, turning his aim back to the guard.

“ _ Clear, as far as I can tell. The patrol returned inside, and it’s only this guard on patrol in that area _ .”

“All right, here’s the plan,” Craig said. He had thought about shooting the radio off the guard, but knocking him out would probably create too much of a commotion. “I’ll create a distraction, then both of you rookies will take the chance to sneak inside.” He scanned the area for something that would make a loud noise and spotted a trashcan around the corner. “When the guard leaves, you’ll go through that door.”

“The door has a security panel,” Kenny piped up from beside Craig. “Well, a basic security grid designed by me. Good practice for Clyde.”

Craig nodded. “Clyde, there’s a security panel next to the door, so you’ll need to bypass the security to let them in. On your signal, I’ll create a distraction.”

He heard keyboard typing in the background on the line, and the security panel flickered. The guard hadn’t noticed anything yet. “ _ Security grid is offline for 60 seconds, starting…now. _ ” The screen of the security panel went dark, then Craig knew it was time to act.

He hoped that his aim hadn’t turned rusty while he had been recovering. Steadying his breath, he aimed directly at the trashcan on his scope and pulled the trigger. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the trashcan exploded with a burst of brilliant blue, knocking over and catching the attention of the guard by the door. As Craig had hoped, the guard moved to check out the commotion, and he grinned, watching the two agents slip past the door, making their way inside in the building. Sliding down his scope towards the guard, he shot once more towards the radio on his belt, grinning at the jerk of surprise from the guard when his leg was splattered with blue. The guard shook his fist in Craig’s direction.

“Kind of overkill, don’t you think?” Kenny asked. “Jason is going to take all day to get that paint off his pants and that’s going to leave a bruise mark. Well, now it’s time for you to relax and watch your boys.”

He could still feel the tingles in his fingers from that last shot. Letting out a sigh of misty white, he moved to sit next to Kenny, who was typing away at his laptop. On the monitor, he could see Twitch and Ike making their way through the building, ducking past the cameras and guards with Clyde’s instructions. Switching the transmit mode off on the communications device, he glanced at the blueprint-like screen on the laptop, with flashing lights indicating people in the building.

“You bugged them with trackers?” Craig asked, mildly amused and not at all surprised.

“Let’s just say that every paintball gun has a special tracker that’s being tested out right now. Kevin’s got Wendy’s approval, and I get to have fun.” Kenny shot him a grin.

“Huh.” He turned back to the screen, watching idly as it flickered between different sections of the building.

“ _ …The USB’s position isn’t stationary. It’s in one of the guard’s possession and you’ll have to either swipe it without them realizing or knock them out _ .”

“ _ Roger. I feel like the guard with the USB is going to be hard to take out, and we don’t have the proper disguise to steal it _ ,” Ike said. “ _ Don’t you think we’ll have a better chance if we ambush him in a quiet room? _ ”

“ _ I agree. Clyde, where’s the USB’s location now? _ ”

“ _ It’s moving towards the room you guys are at now. It’s a guard with a dog mask around the corner. I can see the USB around his neck. _ ”

“ _ Ike, you stay there. I’ll lure him in myself. _ ”

“ _ Wait, Twitch, what are you—? _ ”

Craig had his eyes glued to the screen, where Twitch had moved out into the corridor, peering around the corner. A sharp glistening object slid out onto his hand, and Craig recognized it to be a switchblade. Beside him, Kenny had a look of amusement on his face. “I didn’t know you allowed sharp weapons in this training exercise,” he said.

“I didn’t,” Craig replied. He should have checked the agents for any hidden weapons, although where Twitch had even hidden a knife on him, Craig had no idea.

“Agent Cox,” he hissed into the microphone, “what do you think you’re doing?”

Twitch blinked in surprise, looking around before focusing his gaze on the camera above. “ _ Not now _ ,” Twitch whispered back, crouching by the wall to hide. “ _ There’s someone coming around the corner. _ ”

“Look, when I said this was strictly a no-kill mission, it doesn’t mean that you can stab—”

“ _ Oh shit _ ,” Twitch cursed, tucking the knife away. Craig watched the blonde figure bolt across the hallway, ducking into a different room. The guard followed with a deadly focus, the USB chain swinging on his neck. His hand moved to grasp something from his side, which Craig assumed to be a gun.

“ _ He’s coming your way, Twitch _ ,” Clyde informed. Craig could hear him frantically typing away. “ _ Look, you might have to take him out. Careful, he’s armed with a pistol _ .”

Craig nudged Kenny with his elbow, who only rolled his eyes and tapped at his laptop. The footage changed to a different angle of the hallway, showing the still figure of the guard. The masked guard lingered in front of the closed door for a moment before kicking it open. Twitch seemed to have found himself in a safe position, ready to spring into action when needed. He was playing the waiting game, listening out for the footsteps in the corridor. Pulling out his pistol, he aimed it at the lights, and the room went dark.

There were scuffles coming from inside the room and typing beside him as Kenny switched modes so that they could see inside the room. Twitch had the man in a grapple, pinning the man’s hand with the gun onto the wall. There was a moment of struggle and Ike burst into the room, gun out, pointing towards the guard. A few well-aimed shots splattered the wall as the man dodged, taking Twitch onto the ground with him easily. He swiped the USB off the ground where it had fallen, training his gun on Ike. Twitch was winded from the earlier tackle, still fumbling to pick himself off the ground.

Despite the two-on-one disadvantage, the masked guard seemed unfazed, watching their every movement. Craig had a feeling he knew who was behind the mask, from the dark hair to the amused gaze trained on the younger Broflovski. Of course he had to pick the dog mask, of all things.

Twitch seemed to be all right, at least. He was still on the ground, watching the guard’s carefully. His eyes flickered to the window, then he stood up slowly, knife sliding out into his hand.

Wait, now that he thought about it, the direction of the room was facing…

“ _ Craig, can you see the room they’re in? _ ” came Clyde’s voice. He seemed to have noticed what Twitch was getting at now. “ _ Do you have eyes on the target? _ ”

He adjusted his scope, moving to search for the room without lights. Flipping the heat sensor on, he could pick out three shapes moving around in the room. Unfortunately, the guard wasn’t in clear view. “Affirmative, but I don’t have a clear shot,” he replied. “Too far away from the window.”

“ _ Ike, shoot towards his feet and I’ll do the rest. _ ”

A sudden movement in the room caused the guard to briefly take his eyes off Ike, and shot at where Twitch had been seconds ago. The floor was splattered with red, too bright to be blood. Ike took that chance to shoot at the man, who dodged out of the way past the window. A glint of a knife flew barely centimetres in front of the guard’s face, causing him to flinch backwards into view.

That one moment was all Craig needed and he pulled the trigger without hesitation.


	5. Drunken Escapades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Craig and the boys go to a bar to celebrate their victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! Nothing is scarier than a bunch of drunk people. Also I've never been to a bar or been drunk before (shocking, I know), so it's probably not accurate.

It hadn’t been too hard to find a bar open this late at night, although a suggestion had them entering this place, a seedy little bar located just around the corner from their headquarters. Aside from the stagnant stench of cigarette smoke in the establishment, the drinks were relatively cheap and decent. Unfortunately, Craig couldn’t say the same for the decor, eyeing the skulls sitting on a shelf behind the bar counter. Stan mentioned that it was owned by one of his acquaintances, although Craig had no idea how or why Stan knew a bunch of emos.

“Goths,” Stan had muttered under his breath earlier. “Say anything else and you’ll be thrown out.”

The training exercise had been reported a success, to which Wendy had been fairly impressed with their teamwork to take down one of the Agency’s best agents, despite that not being the primary objective. Said agent was currently holding a bag of ice to his bruised cheek, throwing a dirty glance every now and then from the other table. And as usual, Clyde didn’t pass up the chance to rub their victory into his face.

“Yeah! We got you good this time! You’ve got to treat us to some drinks!” Clyde cheered, hooking an arm around the disgruntled Stan.

“I got shot  _ and _ punched in the face! That wasn’t part of the ‘retrieval mission’ you were given!” Ike looked embarrassed, having dealt the bruise blooming on Stan’s cheek. “I can’t believe Wendy actually allowed this group of barbarians to pass.”

“Hey, that’s my little brother you’re talking about there,” Kyle scolded, nudging Stan with his elbow. “You’d better not talk shit about him. And Ike, I don’t want you drinking anything with alcohol, all right?”

The younger Broflovski stuck his tongue out childishly at Kyle, crossing his arms. “I’m already of legal drinking age, so you can’t stop me, Kyle. You’re not my mom,” Ike declared loudly. “I’m going to get myself a martini.” He stood up and made his way towards the bar to get drinks, with Kyle following after him shortly.

“I still think that the last punch was unnecessary,” Stan grumbled, throwing back the contents of his cup in one go. He blinked rapidly, then jabbed his finger in Craig’s direction. “And this time doesn’t count, it was practically four versus one.”

“Woah, slow down there, cowboy, the night is still young,” Kenny said, placing down a tray of shot glasses on the other table. The clear liquid in the glasses sloshed around from the impact. “There’s a lot more where these came from.” He distributed them out to everyone around the table, then took one for himself. Settling into the seat opposite Stan, he raised his glass into the air. “Cheers,” Kenny said with a grin. “To the winning team.”

Craig glanced at the shot glass filled with regret and he sighed, anticipating the hangover he was going to get in the morning. The strong alcohol burned his throat and Craig struggled to swallow it. It had been far too long since he had vodka, and that distinct ethanol taste was giving him major flashbacks to their graduation party. He slammed his glass back down onto the table before he could let go of it by accident, feeling the warmth quickly spread within him. If they were going to keep this up, he wasn’t going to last long.

“Having trouble keeping it down, Tucker?” Stan sneered.

“Not at all, Marsh,” Craig retorted, flipping him off. “Tastes just like water.”

“Hey, Twitch, drink up, it’s Stan’s treat today. No need to be shy,” Clyde said, a little too loud for Craig’s ears. He could see the lady behind the bar giving them the stink eye, although she had been doing that since their group first stepped into the bar. Now that Clyde had mentioned it, Twitch hadn’t touched the shot that Kenny had handed him.

“I didn’t agree to buy you guys drinks,” Stan argued, reaching out for the vodka-filled shot glass at Kyle’s empty seat. “Like I said, today’s training mission doesn’t count. We never shook on it, uh...” He trailed off, brows knitted together in thought. “What was your ‘team name’ again?”

“We’re the Dreamer Memers, I told you like, thirty minutes ago.”

Craig decided to block out that side of the conversation that he wanted no part of, feeling the oncoming headache that wasn’t caused by the vodka shot. Standing up, he beckoned to Twitch to follow him to the bar. The discussion between Clyde and Stan was getting heated, from the way his friend was waving his arms around without concern. Twitch had a slight frown; the blonde was probably feeling a little left out surrounded by their group of friends. Well, the term ‘friends’ being used loosely. Twitch nodded, looking relieved to leave the table.

“Sorry about them,” Craig sighed, when the blonde caught up to him. “Clyde can be a little childish and Stan is just an asshole when he’s had some drinks.”

“‘Dreamer Memers’?” Twitch asked, hiding his smile behind his hand. “Who was the one that came up with that?”

“You dare to suggest that I came up with that bullshit name?”

“Well, it wasn’t like you disagreed with him, and he did tell Chief Testaburger that ‘the Dreamer Memers have once again defeated the Dream Team’.”

“Trust me, it is hard to say no to Clyde, it’s not like I can stop him anyway.”

The blonde took a seat at the bar, picking up the menu to scan through. He seemed to mull over his thoughts, then looked up at Craig. In this dim light, his eyes were more green than blue. “You guys seem close,” he commented, eyes drifting back to the menu. “Known each other long?”

“A little too long. I grew up with Clyde and met the rest of them during training in the Agency about six years ago. We graduated from the same class and ended up here at Headquarters. And here I thought I was leaving those pricks behind.” Craig moved to the seat next to Twitch, glancing down at the menu. There were all sorts of strange drink names that he had never seen before, though from the ingredients listed under the drinks, they were just named that way to sound more hardcore. “What about you? I heard you got transferred from out of town.”

“Yeah. The old place wasn’t doing much for me, and I thought, you know, new place, new opportunities.”

“Well, you lucked out. This probably isn’t any much better than where you came from, even if it is Headquarters.”

“The people here seem… friendlier.” Twitch had his gaze on where Clyde was now laughing along to what Kenny had said, picking up yet another shot glass. “You don’t really call each other by titles here, unlike the branch office.” Twitch paused, then added, “sir.”

“Yeah. Now that you mention it, stop calling me ‘sir’. The novelty has worn off and formality isn’t really my thing either,” Craig said. “Leave that for Captain Testaburger or whatever her title is now.”

“Then, what should I call you?”

Craig levelled his gaze with Twitch’s, smirking. “I have a name, don’t I?”

“If you aren’t going to order anything, stop taking up space at the bar.” Smoke was blown in their general direction. The bartender was staring at them with heavy-lidded eyes lined with black, the cigarette holder balanced delicately between her fingers.

“I’ll just have bourbon on the rocks,” Craig said, placing the menu down. He didn’t want to know what a ‘Demonic Blitz’ or an ‘Insanity Nightfall’ was, deciding to just go with what he usually ordered. The skulls were staring back at him on the shelf, as if judging him for not ordering from the menu.

Without another word, the bartender turned to make his order, then placed it in front of him. She turned to the blonde and Twitch smiled at her politely. “I’ll have—”

“The usual?” she asked, and the blonde nodded. To Craig’s surprise, she had already made the drink and placed it in front of Twitch.

“I’ll be paying for him too,” Craig said, pulling out his wallet.

“That’ll be fifteen dollars,” she said, taking another drag from her cigarette. Craig slid a ten and a five over the counter, and she picked it up, tucked it into her pocket and left the two alone.

Craig swirled his drink, watching the liquid until it settled in the cup. It looked much more promising than that vodka shot he had earlier. “You know her?” he asked, watching the bartender return to wiping glasses at the other side of the counter.

“Henrietta? She is a nice person once you get to know her,” Twitch said, stirring his drink with the straw. “I passed by here once when I couldn’t sleep and got a cup of iced tea.”

“The tea won’t help with that, caffeine and all.” Craig couldn’t quite see how a quiet man like Twitch could find himself drinking iced tea in a shady-looking bar like this one, but he supposed each of them had their own tastes.

Twitch shrugged at his answer. “You didn’t have to pay for my drink.”

“Take it as a reward for passing Testaburger’s test and your reckless plan against Stan. Cheers,” he said, raising his glass. Twitch tapped his against Craig’s glass, and then they took a drink.

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” Twitch said, “but thanks.”

“You have the skills to back you up, but you can’t keep doing the same shit every time.” Craig placed his cup on the table, the ice clinking softly against the glass. “If you lose your only weapon in a fight as distraction and can’t overpower your opponent, you die.” Twitch was quiet after that, staring down at his glass. “But,” Craig continued, “you did get the top field agent of the Agency real good. Stan probably never saw that knife coming, or he wouldn’t have moved to where I could shoot him. He probably didn’t see Ike’s fist coming.”

“I don’t think anyone else saw that coming either,” Twitch said with a laugh. “It was a good punch.”

“Hey, not to interrupt your date and all, but this is a celebration for the Dreamer Memers, so if my boy Craig ain’t there, we can’t start the party!” Clyde slid in between them, hand holding an empty shot glass. He turned to regard Twitch, then grinned. “You’re an honorary member of the Dreamer Memers, so you can join us too, Twitch.”

“What the— Clyde, are you already drunk? I left you guys for like, ten minutes,” Craig said, carefully prying the shot glass from Clyde’s hand. He smacked the hand that reached for his glass of bourbon. Clyde pulled his hand back, frowning at Craig like a scolded kid. “Get Stan to pay for your drink, don’t steal mine.” Turning to Twitch, he sighed. “Sorry about him, but I have to bring him back to the table.”

Twitch replied with a wave. “No worries. I’d like to sit here for a while anyway,” he said, hiding a smile behind his hand.

Craig nodded. “All right, if you say so, Twitch.” With some effort, he managed to herd Clyde back towards their table, drink in hand. He felt Clyde elbowing him in the side, albeit too hard. Clyde tended to not be able to judge his strength when he was drunk.

“Hey, landed yourself a cute one, huh?” Clyde slurred. “Just your type, ain’t he?”

“Clyde, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I mean, you have a thing for blondes, right? Your ex, Thomas, and now Twitch. Oh, right, can’t forget Kenny too.”

“Since when did I date Kenny? I have standards.”

As they approached the table they were at earlier, Kenny waved over to them. “Don’t be like that Craig, I thought what we had was special,” Kenny replied with a fake sigh, holding up a glass. “Too bad I’m already a taken man.”

“In your dreams, McCormick.” Craig took a drink from his glass before taking a seat at the empty table beside Clyde. He eyed the empty glasses littering the other table, vaguely recalling that there weren’t this many when he left. The older Broflovski was back beside Stan, but Ike was nowhere to be seen. He scanned the bar and found Ike chatting away with one of the other patrons of the bar. At least he was away from the chaos.

Kenny gestured to the their table, where there was a few different types of shots laid out in a line. “I thought it would be fun to have some sort of drinking game,” Kenny shrugged. “Stan won against Clyde.”

“Avenge me, Craig!” Clyde proclaimed, hooking an arm around Craig that made him choke on his drink. “Take that asshole down!”

“Come, let’s settle the score right here, Tucker!” Stan said, waving to the identical row of drinks he had on the table. “You only ever drink that same old thing.”

“Because I know not to get shitfaced like you always do,” Craig retorted. He wasn’t going to fall for provocation, not again. However, when Stan started to grin, he had a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Oh? Are you chicken?” Irritation welled up from within him when Stan started imitating a chicken, accompanied by the sounds of clucking. Craig picked up the first shot in line, which was the vodka shot he had earlier.

“What’s in it for me anyway?”

“Fifty bucks for the winner,” Kenny chimed in, waving a fifty-dollar bill. “Stan offered since he declared that he could ‘drink everyone here under the table’. The only rule is that you have to finish these shots. Clyde made it to number four before he choked.”

There were ten in total, and Craig knew from experience that Stan liked the hard liquors. This was going to be hard on his throat and the hangover was going to kill in the morning. But Stan was already on his whatever-th shot now, and Craig could tell he was already tipsy and on his way to being shitfaced. The win would not be easy, but it was at least possible if he didn’t choke.

“Backing out now, Tucker?” Stan asked, and with that, Craig threw back the shot.

All ten shots went by in a blur. He could tell Clyde was cheering him on, banging on the table excitedly while Kenny was holding his phone out, probably recording everything that was going on. Every shot he took, he could feel the burn in his throat and the bitter aftertaste, and by the fifth shot, he could feel the buzz in his mind. But he could tell that Stan wasn’t faring too well, pausing longer and longer between each drink. By the time he slammed the last glass down on the table, Clyde’s loud cheering in his ear was all he needed to know that he won.

“I win, Marsh!” Craig declared, standing up and pointing a shaky finger in his direction. Suddenly, he felt light-headed, immediately holding himself himself with the table. “Now hand over the money, Kenny.”

“Sure, sure. Here you go,” Kenny said, leaning over to tuck the money into his shirt pocket, patting it when he was done. “But wow, you sure downed those quick.”

“Of course, I wasn’t going to lose to that…” Craig paused, staring down at the messy table, frowning when he couldn’t remember the word he was going to use. He settled for another one. “...bastard.”

At some point, Twitch and Ike had returned to the table, sitting across them. Speaking of which, Clyde was now patting his back enthusiastically, causing the world to shake back and forth, making him feel a little nauseous. “Clyde, stop that,” Craig mumbled, pushing his friend away from him, “or I’ll throw up on you.” Clyde scooted over to the other table after that threat, squeezing in next to Kenny. He lay his face down on table, feeling the cool surface on his cheek.

There were conversations going on above him and he couldn’t quite keep track of them, their voices somehow melding together and not at the same time. The song playing in the bar had a heavy beat that he could feel all the way down to his bones, which was a strange feeling he couldn’t quite describe. It all felt so surreal. Getting drunk hadn’t been part of his plans for tonight. He just wanted the world to stop turning and for his stomach to settle down.

A hand patted his shoulder, accompanied by Kenny’s voice. “I know, so I sent the sober men to get some water. They’ll be back soon.” He didn’t know when the blonde had pulled his chair over, but this was better than Clyde’s constant outdoor voice. Closing his eyes, he willed for the world to stop, hearing the sounds of bustling around. Since when was everything so loud and noisy? His head felt heavy like lead.

“Those shots tasted like shit. What the hell did you order?” Craig asked, turning so that he could see Kenny’s grinning face.

“There’s the vodka, tequila...and I can’t remember the rest. I told Henrietta to surprise me,” Kenny replied. The more he stared, the more he wondered how he never knew that Kenny had such blue eyes. Blue eyes… Many of the people in the Agency had blue eyes, like Bebe and Butters. They were blondes, right? Twitch was a blonde with blue eyes too, but…they were different. “I knew that I asked for some high percentage shots, but those sure took a toll on you. Now you’re talking about eyes.”

“No, ‘m not,” Craig denied, his words slurring together. “You’re talking shit.” He didn’t say that out loud, did he?

Kenny only gave him an amused smile. He looked over at the person who approached them, which he recognised was Twitch. The other blonde had a look of concern on his face, blue eyes watching him carefully. Or was it green? “All right, it’s time to sit up. Here, hold him up.”

The world was shifting once more, and Craig held onto the table, breathing steadily to keep the contents of his stomach inside. Something was pressed against his lips, which he realised that it was a straw. Taking a sip of the icy cold water, it felt so refreshing, something to cool the increasing warmth he was feeling within. He felt much better after that, and his mind was less hazy. He glanced down at the hand on his arm, following it up to the owner. Twitch looked back at him with a questioning gaze.

“What colour even are your eyes? Blue? Green?” Craig blurted out. The only response he received was silence from the people around him, before Kenny burst out laughing.

“Breen?” Clyde piped up helpfully from where he was sitting across him.

“I thought it was called cyan,” Kenny said between laughs. “But breen is better.”

As laughter chorused around them, Craig watched Twitch curiously, who blinked owlishly back at him in surprise. He reached out towards Twitch’s face, leaning in to take a closer look at the eyes that had caught his attention. The blonde froze under his touch, tensing under his scrutinous gaze, doing nothing else but stare back. From this distance, Craig had a better look at his eyes. The rims of his irises were deep blue, but closer to the pupil, they gradually faded out into green. There was something about his eyes that was strange, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Save that for the bedroom, Craig.” Kenny’s voice came from the side, and Craig turned to see him leaning back against his chair, mug of beer in hand. “As much as I want a free show, I don’t want to be thrown out yet. It’s still too early for that.”

Ignoring Kenny’s unhelpful comment, Craig returned his attention to the blonde in front of him. “You never answered my questions from before,” Craig said, the words stumbling past his lips. He sat back, conscious of how close they were. Their noses had been practically touching earlier. His thoughts were muddled, but he managed to recall what he wanted to ask, something that had been bugging him for quite a while. “You’re pretty damn good with your hands,” he added, miming a stabbing motion with his own. “Where did you learn it from?”

Twitch’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. His eyes widened a fraction, before stuttering out his reply. “I-I— What?”

“Oh my God, Craig, you can’t just ask him that in front of everyone,” Clyde gasped loudly.

“Where did you learn it from?” Craig repeated, this time slower. He had to make sure Twitch understood his question, what with the dumbfounded look on his face. Maybe elaborating would help him out. “Your techniques.” At Twitch’s lack of response, he continued. “Took me by surprise… Aiming for the face is good and all, but someone will lose an eye.” He mulled over his words. “I guess that’s the intent,” he mumbled to himself. Intent… Killer intent? Was that what he had noticed before? The look that had haunted his mind for some time since that day they sparred.  “It was intense, like you were a…” What was the word? Ah. “...beast.”

Kenny was giving him strange looks, like he was trying to keep a straight face for whatever reason. “Techniques, huh?” he asked. “Was he that good?”

“Of course. You know how much experience I have and he still managed to pin me down on the ground. Briefly, but it still happened,” Craig scowled, squinting at the blonde. Well, two blondes. He wasn’t sure if it was just the two blondes or if he was seeing doubles. “Like, have you not seen him do the...” Craig mimed the stabbing action again. 

The replies from the rest of his friends were looks of surprise on different levels. It was silent for a brief moment before everything went to chaos.

“Tucker, you dog!” Stan slammed the table with a beer mug, the contents sloshing around on the table. “You  _ were _ banging him this whole time! Come on, Kenny, pay up!” Kyle, who was next to him, was trying to wrestle said mug out of his hand before he could upturn the rest of the contents.

“Y’all were already screwing and you never told me!” Clyde yelled, looking scandalized. “I thought we were best bros!”

“If anything, I got screwed,” Craig muttered under his breath, recalling the painful memory of going to Butters’ office. His head was beginning to throb, definitely from their loud voices. “Stop your screaming, assholes, my head hurts.”

Kenny had fallen off his chair from laughing too hard and remained on the floor, shaking. “Look, you’ve killed Kenny,” Stan accused. “How am I supposed to collect my bet money now? Anyway, you know the unspoken rule about banging your co-workers, you sly bastard.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Marsh,” Craig sniped back. “What’s going on with you and…” He squinted at Kyle, trying hard to recall his name. It was Bro-something… Bro… Broccoli? Close enough. “...Broccoli II?” He paused, thinking hard about what Stan had said. “And the hell are you talking about? I was just talking about the thing. You know?”

The person who had been missing from the table for some time had returned to find the table in a mess. Ike stirred away at his martini glass, looking curiously at the laughing blonde on the ground, then to where Twitch was trying to grab hold of Craig’s arm to stop him from doing the stabbing motion again, then to an indignant Stan. “What’s going on here? I only left to get another martini,” Ike said, taking a seat next to the pouting Clyde.

“Well, Craig here did unmentionable things to Twitch and he never told  _ me _ ,” Clyde grumbled, voice raising towards the end of his sentence.

Craig was trying to wrestle his hand out of Twitch’s grip, but he eventually relented to the warmth from his hands. He caught Ike’s gaze, who had a flash of recognition and nodded. “Oh yeah, that did happen,” Ike said, thoughtfully. “Craig had to get his stitches redone, didn’t he? But it was pretty cool to watch.”

“You bastard!” Kyle was now glaring holes into Craig. “What have you been teaching my little brother! How could you have exposed him to… to...”

All these accusations didn’t make sense to Craig. He was only asking Twitch about his knife skills; they didn’t have to make such a fuss over it.

“Look, it wasn’t like that!” Twitch tried to catch their attention, releasing his grip on Craig’s arm. “We aren’t a thing, and I’m certainly not having those kinds of relations with Craig.” When Craig opened his mouth to speak, Twitch slapped a hand over to cover it. Anything that Craig wanted to say was lost in a mumble into Twitch’s warm hand. He struggled to pry off the hand, but it stayed firmly on. “It’s just a misunderstanding! He was just talking about fighting!”

“Yeah, I don’t know where your minds went, but it was a really cool fight with knives,” Ike said, throwing a glare at Kyle. “Craig won that round.”

“Don’t call me that, you brat,” Craig mumbled into Twitch’s hand. “It’s ‘sir’ to you.” That had earned a curious glance from Clyde and Craig missed the way Clyde had looked at Twitch, then Ike.

“Wait, so you two ain’t banging? Damn it,” Stan sighed. He stood up, swaying slightly. “I need another drink.”

“No, you don’t. I think you’ve had enough for tonight.” The redhead beside him yanked Stan back into his seat, hand firmly holding onto the other’s wrist. Kyle had a look of concern, although his voice held mainly scolding. “Don’t complain to me tomorrow morning when you’re dying from a massive headache,” he said. Glancing at his watch, he continued, “It’s getting pretty late now. Should we start heading back?”

“I’m waiting for Leo to finish up his shift,” Kenny said from the ground, face lit by the screen of his phone. “Should be soon. Why don’t you all head back first?”

Clyde nodded, phone in hand. The screen was bright with a smiling picture of Bebe. “Come crash at my place, Craig. Bebe’s coming to pick us up,” he said. “Not sure when she’ll get here though.”

“Talking about me, darling?” A swish of blonde curls appeared over Clyde’s shoulder, the owner throwing them a cheeky grin. Bebe was holding her phone in her hand, the other placed on Clyde’s shoulder. She pecked his cheek in greeting. “I see you’ve had a fun night, boys,” she commented, eyeing the numerous glasses littered on the table. “The bartender told me that they’re closing up soon, so get your asses up and let’s go. I can take two more in my car, so does anyone else need a ride back?”

“I’ll come. I’m sure you’ll need help with these drunkards, Ms Stevens,” Ike said, swaying slightly when he stood up. “Anyway, Kyle is going to be busy bringing Stan back home.”

“Ike, you’re not coming with me?” Kyle asked. He looked conflicted for a moment, glancing between Stan and his younger brother. “At least text me, so I know you’re alright.”

“Whatever,  _ mom _ ,” Ike emphasised, rolling his eyes.

“Twitch, would you mind accompanying us back? I might need a hand or two,” Bebe said, beckoning to the blonde man. “Don’t worry, I’ll drive you home. It’s dangerous to be out by yourself this late at night.”

With everything settled, they left Kenny sitting by the bar counter, chatting with the bartender. Their group of five made their way to Bebe’s car, which was parked right outside in the deserted street. Craig got into the backseat, stuffed between Twitch and Clyde. He closed his eyes, slowly dozing off from the constant hum of the engine and the warmth by his side.

\-----

When Craig woke up again, he realised that he was lying on a familiar couch, thin strips of moonlight cutting through the darkness of the room. He was already at Clyde’s place, which meant that at some point, Bebe had come to pick them up. His memories were still hazy, but he recalled sitting in the back of the car with Clyde and Twitch.

He blinked at the feeling of warmth next to him. Turning to look at the source, those familiar blue-green eyes stared back at him. “You’re awake,” Twitch said, adjusting the blanket that he had draped over Craig. The shadows under his eyes were darker, if that was possible, in this light (or lack of). “If you need anything, just let me know. Bebe gave me permission to raid the kitchen.”

Craig found it hard to swallow from how dry his throat was. He shifted so that he was sitting up. “What time is it?” he asked, voice cracking. The nausea had returned, although it hadn’t been as bad earlier in the bar. Maybe the silence of the room around them was helping. He spotted another figure sleeping in the armchair, which was the younger Broflovski. Had he not gone home with Kyle? He had noticed the tension between them earlier in the bar.

“It’s almost three. Here, I’ll go get you some water.” Twitch stood up, but Craig’s hand instinctively shot out to catch his sleeve. The blonde tensed at the contact, staring down at Craig with question in his gaze.

Craig didn’t know why he did it either. “Sorry,” he said, releasing his grip. “I don’t know what came over me.”

An awkward silence settled between them. He wasn’t sure what was the cause of it, but maybe he had been a bit too intrusive with his questions back at the bar. The words were all jumbled up in his mind and refused to form coherent sentences. Craig hadn’t been much of a conversationalist when he was sober anyway. He was just curious about the blonde, who was still an enigma that Craig hadn’t figured out. “I don’t know you. For all I know, you could have been an alien.”

“I’m… a what?” came Twitch’s puzzled reply.

“But, you’re too human to be one. I just don’t understand.” His head was still feeling heavy as he lay back down on the couch, closing his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore.”

He heard Twitch chuckle. “Just go to sleep. Good night, Craig.”

“Good night, Twitch.”


	6. Hey There Interpol, What'cha Doing Here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day.

To say that he felt awful was the understatement of the year.

His head pounded like someone took a hammer and hit him hard. Twice. The morning light that seeped past the curtains was too blinding, stinging his eyes badly. His throat was drier than the Sahara desert. “What the hell happened last night?” Craig groaned, clutching at his head. He remembered drinking at some strange bar last night, but the rest of the night had been a blur. Giving himself a moment to recollect his thoughts, he looked around the room.

Clyde’s living room was how he remembered, with the various photographs and knick-knacks lining the shelves, a few books laying here and there. The curtains had been drawn closed, though the bright rays of sunlight seeping through told him that it was already past dawn. He assumed that Clyde had brought him back here somehow, or maybe it had been Bebe.

Feeling his pockets, he was pleasantly surprised to find a fifty-dollar bill tucked away in the front. A memory of multiple shot glasses flashed through his mind, bringing forth a new wave of questions. Craig wasn’t quite sure what happened, but it probably had something to do with Stan (that serial drinker), and anything to do with the Dream Team off-mission was bound to end up badly. He was currently wallowing in misery, so yeah, that confirmed his theory.

The door slammed open at that moment, causing Craig to release a string of swear words at the loud noise. “What the hell,” he groaned, throwing a glare at the intruders.

“Good morning, Craig. Did you sleep well?” Bebe greeted brightly, holding several bags in hand. She made her way to the kitchen counter. “I took Ike out for some food and I bought some tea from the teahouse downtown. Oh, and I went grocery shopping at the same time. I’m making some chicken noodle soup for brunch.”

Ike looked perfectly fine, as if he hadn’t gone drinking together with them last night. “You lucky brat,” Craig muttered under his breath. “What I wouldn’t give to be rid of this hangover.” A flash of blue eyes surfaced in his mind for a moment. Looking around the room once more, he realised that there was someone missing. “Where’s Twitch?” he asked. Craig had a feeling that the man had been here last night. Either that or he had a very vivid dream.

“Who…? Oh, Richard? I think he went home last night. He wasn’t here this morning,” Bebe replied. A sly grin stretched out on her face. “Although, I did hear from a little birdie that you’ve been hitting on him.”

“Me? What the f—”

He was interrupted by a crash that came from the hallway. Three pairs of eyes landed on the figure leaning against the doorframe, wire tangled around his ankle. “Bebe, remind me to never go drinking again.” Clyde stumbled into the kitchen, hand holding his head. As he walked, the cable was dragged along the floor with him.

“You say that every time but you’d still do it anyway. Good morning, darling,” Bebe said with a smile, giving him a peck on the cheek. Clyde leaned on the counter beside her.

“Smells good. What’cha cooking, babe?” he asked, peering into the pot. “Noodles? Great, I’m starving!”

Turning away from the sappy couple, Craig leaned back into the couch with a sigh. Ike settled in beside Craig, handing him a takeaway tea cup. He could smell the sharp scent of peppermint emanating from the cup and he took a sip, the cooling minty taste spreading on his taste buds. Instantly, Craig felt a little better. He would have taken gulps of the hot liquid if he hadn’t feared for his tongue.

Pulling out his phone, he was dismayed to find out that the battery was completely flat. “Hey, Clyde, lend me your charger,” Craig called out, plugging in his phone at the side table. His friend didn’t seem to hear him, too engrossed with whispering and laughing with Bebe. The phone flashed to life and Craig frowned at the numerous messages that popped up right after the loading screen.

There was several messages from Clyde, which included nothing but letters that didn’t form actual words, which Craig assumed was drunk typing. A few from Kenny, including a couple of pictures. He opened them, scowling at how they were angled shots of his miserable self lying face-down on the table with multiple glasses artistically placed around him. As he scrolled through the messages, he paused at a particular picture. In that one, Twitch had one his hand covering Craig’s mouth, the other gripped tightly around his wrist. The blonde had his brows furrowed, mouth open in protest. That picture had been accompanied by a few winky faces. He replied to it with a middle finger.

It buzzed with a reply immediately.  _ ‘Gd that ur not dead from alcohol poisoning. Burger Queen wants u in HQ @ 2. Impt meeting.’ _

_ ‘K. Who’s going 2 b there?’ _

_ ‘Dream Team, the Captain and some dude from interpol.’ _

Interpol? If they were coming down to the Agency, it meant that there was something major cropping up in the city. He took another sip from his peppermint tea. If he was going to meet some bigwig from Interpol, he had to do something about his raging hangover first.

\-----

“Glad you could make it, Craig,” Kyle greeted. “It’s nice to see that you’re experiencing what regret must feel like.”

“Choke on a dick, Broflovski,” Craig replied, greeting him with a flip of a finger. His head was pounding less thanks to the aspirin and Bebe’s chicken noodle soup, but it didn’t make his mood any less shittier. It was only the two of them here, if he didn’t include Stan, who was lying down on the table and occasionally letting out a pathetic moan. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Wendy won’t be joining us and Kenny can’t be here because, you know,” he explained, giving Craig a look. “Token is coming with the Interpol agent.”

“Great.” Craig returned to checking for messages on his phone, replying to the ones from Kenny and Clyde. More emojis; he fired some of his own back to them. He could feel an intense gaze on him, so he put his phone face-down on the table and crossed his arms, looking up at the offender.

“So, uh, I wanted to ask you, actually…” Kyle looked uneasy, tapping his fingernail on the screen of his phone. “How is Ike?”

“How, as in…?” Craig raised a brow at him. “Can’t you ask him yourself?”

“He didn’t text me yesterday, even though I told him to. I’m just worried that he could be somewhere out there on his own, and if he doesn’t make it home in one piece...”

“Kyle,” Stan groaned, dragging out his name, “for the love of God, stop doing that to your damn phone. My head hurts.”

“I know he’s probably safe with you guys and all,” Kyle continued, ignoring Stan, “but I already have a lot to worry about on my end, and I just need to know that Ike—”

“Thank you for gathering here today on short notice,” came a smooth voice, interrupting Kyle mid-rant. Token stepped into the room, followed by a man with a pair of crutches and braces. He gestured to the agents seated in the room. “Agent Valmer, these are the men that the Chief has assigned for this mission: Communications Commanding Officer Broflovski and the field agents, Agent Marsh and Agent Tucker.”

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m Agent Jimmy Valmer from Interpol’s intelligence unit,” the man introduced himself after seating himself at the table. “As you may or may not know, word has it that there is a case of money laundering happening out there in the streets that may be linked to a high-profile individual which we do not know the identity of. Interpol has traced the money trail to this city, but the crime lord seems to have caught wind of what we’re up to, so the trail has disappeared.”

“With the help of the Agency’s Intel unit, we were able to locate one of the establishments suspected of such activity.” Token pulled out and slid a photograph across the table. It showed a shady-looking building lit with bright neon lights in the shape of a womanly horse, which looked very much just like…

“A strip club. You want us to go to a strip club,” Craig stated flatly.

“It is one of the common service establishments linked with this type of crime,” Jimmy explained. He pulled out a stack of paper from his file, handing it over to them. There were many sentences underlined in red. “But from the reports our team of agents had sent in, a certain individual has been observed entering the building at a certain time each day. We suspect that he may be linked to the crime that we’ve traced. Since having Interpol agents hang around the city may tip off the person in question, we will leave it to you on how you’ll be carrying out the mission. Of course, I will be joining in your strategy meetings, but not on your field missions, as much as I want to,” he said, gestured to his crutches. “A shame, really, considering where the location is at.”

“This is the plan that I have discussed with the Chief. Our team will be sending in agents under disguise to stake out the Hazelnut Horse, so these will be your roles: Commander Broflovski, you will be in a concealed van parked a few streets away to monitor the streets on the surveillance cameras; the field agents will be infiltrating the building as patrons to watch for any suspicious activity, as well as for the target. The Tech team will provide you with the necessary equipment. Yes, Agent Marsh? Do you have a question?”

Craig glanced over at Stan, who was now pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked terribly green, to which Craig assumed that he was still hungover and ready to puke his guts out. Kyle seemed to catch on to Stan’s dire situation quickly, turning over to Token with a serious glint in his eye.

“Captain, I believe that we should discuss with the Tech team first about the necessary equipment before going into further detail, since this will determine the route of action the field agents will be taking,” Kyle said, diverting Token’s gaze from the other man. “A file of the documents for the field agents to look over will be sufficient for them to get themselves familiar with the target and the objective. The operation requires sufficient preparation time for the field agents, so I believe that we may have to shift our discussion to a future meeting.”

“I do have these files on me now and Chief Testaburger has already relayed the requests to the Tech team.” Token raised a brow at Kyle, holding out those familiar looking folders. “There is no need to delay further discussion, not when we have a guest in our midst.”

On one hand, Craig didn’t want the meeting to drag on so long, but if he could watch Stan suffer… “I agree with Token. We should just get all the nitty gritty details out of the way,” he drawled, earning himself a look of betrayal from Stan. “What do we have on this suspicious man?”

Token slid a file over to Craig, who picked it up and flipped through it. There was a few photographs and a sheet of details about the target in question and the location. “A middle-aged blond man, who has been seen wearing a hood or a cap, entered the Hazelnut Horse around nine every night. He always brings along a backpack,” Token described. “This is what the Intel unit has on this man.”

“How do you know he’s not just hiding from his wife to see some strippers?” Craig asked, looking down at the blurry photograph. How did they see the details in this? “And why haven’t Intel sent people to go into the club to see what he’s been up to?”

“Unfortunately, the Interpol agents do not carry out actual fieldwork and neither does the Agency’s Intel unit, which is why we have decided to send you, the field agents, in,” Token explained.

“It could be dangerous. Who knows what others may be around listening, so you should try to lay on the down low,” Jimmy said. “There are some suspicious characters lurking about in the area when the Interpol team went to scout the place out, so—”

Suddenly, Stan stood up in his seat, slapping a hand over his mouth. He mumbled something into his hand which sounded a lot like an apology before he made a mad dash for the door, throwing it open and disappearing around the corner. Kyle excused himself and followed after the man.

“I guess it’s a good time to end the meeting now, huh?” Craig shrugged. “Captain?”

“I’ll send you a copy of this file on Monday. Let them know that we’re carrying out the infiltration next week,” Token sighed. He mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like disappointment.

Jimmy clapped his hands together with a smile. “All right. If you fellas don’t mind, I’ll be on my way then. Enjoy your weekend.”

\-----

Craig supposed the meeting could have gone better. It was warmer out with the sun shining down on the street, but barely so. He should have informed his trainees that they would be sticking with Clyde while he was out on mission, but dealing with his hangover in the morning had taken up most of his priorities. He scrolled through his contacts list.

It was then he realised that he didn’t have their personal phone numbers. There were two options that he could choose from: ask Kenny, or hope that Ike was still at Clyde’s house and that he would have Twitch’s number or pass on the message to him. Thinking back to the pictures that he got from Kenny this morning, the blonde wouldn’t let him live down whatever that happened last night, especially when there were parts that he didn’t remember. He decided to call up Clyde.

“Hey pal, how did the meeting go?” Clyde asked, voice muffled with the sound of chewing.

“Ugh, don’t talk and eat at the same time. I’ll tell you more about it later. Is the brat still there?”

There was some shifting noises on the other end. “Nope, he’s gone home. Why? Is there something you need? Wait, let me guess, you don’t have his number.” Craig remained silent and Clyde let out a noise of triumph. “Anyway, you’re at headquarters, right? Just head up and get the files.”

“I can’t,” Craig sighed. He thought of it, but... “I don’t have my access card on me. Might have left it at your house.” 

There were some shifting noises on the other end and Clyde was back. “Oh, you’re right. It’s on the table here. You want me to bring it to you?”

Leaning back against the wall of the building, he let his gaze wander to the people across the road. A familiar head of blonde came into his sight, bobbing amongst the crowd. “Wait, never mind, I’ll call you back.”

He barely got his phone into his pocket before running across the street, thankful that the light at the pedestrian crossing was now green. The blonde had gone around the corner and Craig thought he lost him, until he found said blonde again, further ahead. Craig caught up to him, grabbing him by the arm to stop him. “Hey, Twitch—”

An elbow dug straight below his ribs, causing pain to flare up in his abdomen. Instantly, Craig let go and swore under his breath, clutching at his stomach. Twitch turned around, covering his mouth with his hand at the sight of Craig doubled over in pain. His blue eyes widened in surprise. “Craig?”

“You’ve got good reflexes,” Craig groaned, “and a very sharp elbow.”

“What are you doing here?” Twitch asked, rushing to help Craig up. “I thought it was your off day.”

“I just finished a meeting at Headquarters.” Craig realised that they were garnering looks from curious onlookers. “Let’s go have some coffee,” he suggested, eyeing the nearest Harbucks shop. “We can talk there.”

\-----

They found seats by the window, away from the bustling crowd. “Sorry about that, Craig,” Twitch said sheepishly, folding his coat and placed it on a stool. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

Craig scratched the back of his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

They sat there for a while in awkward silence. It was pleasantly warm in the store, accompanied by the thick aroma of coffee. At this time in the afternoon, there wasn’t as many people as he had expected of a popular coffee shop, soft murmurs from the patrons around them filling up as background noise. The barista was looking up at them every now and again. Craig turned to his companion. “We should order something,” he suggested. “My treat, for accidentally scaring you back there.”

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around, since you got hurt and all…? You already paid for my drink last time, so it’s my turn now,” Twitch offered with a small smile. He got off the stool. “Any drinks in mind?”

“Surprise me,” Craig replied, resting his head on his hand. The blonde nodded and left for the counter with a wave. His gaze landed on the streets outside, watching the people walk by. Craig pulled out his phone when he felt it buzz in his pocket. There were several angry texts from Clyde, the last message being a string of red-faced emojis. He tapped out a quick reply.  _ ‘Sry, saw twitch jn. Didn’t mean to hang up.’ _

Barely a second later, Clyde had replied with a string of moon-faced emojis. Craig scowled. A new text message followed right after.  _ ‘So, you guys dating or what?’ _

_ ‘No, we aren’t. What gave u that idea?’ _

_ ‘Idk. Both of u had good vibes going on last nite. He’s kinda ur type too.’ _

_ ‘Stop trying to set me up on a date w every cute boy u see, Clyde.’ _

_ ‘Aha! U admit he’s cute.’ _

All right, he could at least admit that Twitch was very much his type with the whole ‘cute blonde guy’ thing going on, but Twitch probably wasn’t gay at all. More importantly, the blonde was his trainee and he would rather maintain a professional relationship between them. Also, Craig really wasn’t looking for a romantic relationship right now, not with his increasing workload and all.

“Here’s your drink.”

Said cute blonde guy was back with two cups in his hand. Craig immediately slammed his phone face-down on the table, ignoring the relentless vibrations coming from it. He nodded his thanks to the blonde, who had looked at him curiously. Taking the warm drink from him, Craig squinted at the ‘Cregg’ scribbled haphazardly on the side of the cup. He turned to Twitch. “So, what did you get for me?” he asked, tapping the plastic lid of the cup with a finger.

“A grande pumpkin spice latte frappuccino with soy milk, two pumps of caramel, extra whip cream and sprinkles,” Twitch replied immediately, taking a gulp from his cup. Craig stared at him in confusion; he had completely no idea what Twitch had just said. Popping the lid open, he was faced with liquid darkness. “Just kidding, it’s regular black coffee.”

“Well, you surprised me all right.” Craig could smell the scent of roasted coffee beans wafting from the drink, placing the cup on the side to cool. He wasn’t going to scald his tongue like he did this morning on that peppermint tea. 

“The tea here is pretty average,” Twitch said, taking yet another gulp from the cup. Craig was pretty sure he could still see steam rising up from the blonde’s cup, feeling a little concerned for the man’s tongue. “I know other places that serve a good tea blend.”

“Oh? Like where?” Craig asked. “I’m not much of tea expert.”

Twitch placed a hand to his chin in thought. “Henrietta makes good tea,” he mentioned. “You know, the bartender from the bar we went to last night.”

Now that Twitch had mentioned it, Craig had a feeling that he had probably done something stupid the night before when he was stupidly drunk out of his mind. He suddenly recalled the picture that Kenny had sent in the morning and he regarded Twitch warily. “Talking about last night…” he began slowly, watching the shift in Twitch’s expression from a frown to amusement. “I’m… sorry if I did anything weird. I don’t really remember what happened.”

“No, it’s nothing much. Don’t worry about it,” Twitch laughed it off. “I don’t know if it’s appropriate for me to say this to my superior, but you’re different when you’re around your friends. I kind of like that Craig better.” 

“I’m… What?” Craig stared at him, mind blank. Did he just…? No, he probably didn’t mean it that way. He scolded his brain for thinking too deeply into it. “So anyway, I wanted to talk to you about training for the next week,” Craig said with a cough in an attempt to change the subject. He glanced around to make sure no one was listening to them, then lowered his voice. “I’ll be away on mission for a while, so Clyde will be taking over your training for a few weeks. He’s good with recruit training, so you shouldn’t have much problems.”

“Ok,” Twitch nodded.

“But, if you need anything or anything happens, you can give me a call. Speaking about which, I don’t have your contact in my phone.” Craig picked up his phone from the table, flipping it onto silent so that the phone would stop buzzing in the background. Sliding away the incessant number of texts he had from Clyde, he opened a new contact, handing it over to Twitch. “Do you mind…?”

“No, not at all.” Twitch took the phone from him. He blinked down at the screen, then typed in his contact details. Taking out his own phone (an old model flip-phone) from his coat, Twitch tapped out a message on Craig’s phone. The lights on Twitch’s phone flashed red twice. The blonde glanced down at the screen, then snapped it shut.

He held the phone back to Craig. “Here you go,” he said, sliding off the stool and pulling on his coat. “I guess I should be going soon. See you around, Craig.”

After a series of waves and goodbyes, Twitch left. Craig looked down at his phone at the new message thread to Twitch, where he had sent a message to Twitch. The message was only a smiley face, staring back up at him. He couldn’t help but find it a tad, if he dared to say it, cute. Sighing, he smacked his head down onto the table, ignoring the gasp from the concerned people nearby.

“Damn it,” Craig cursed.


	7. Nuttin' To See Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intel gathering at the local strip club and the start of an unavoidable side quest.

“How long has it been since we’ve gone on a mission together?” Stan asked, leaning back in his seat.

“Not long enough,” Craig replied, drumming on the steering wheel impatiently with his fingers. They were parked some distance away from the Hazelnut Horse, awaiting the signal from Token to move out. The members of the support team were still on their way from Headquarters, having met a delay in their schedule thanks to a certain blonde.

The parking lot was barren of any other cars at this late hour, since most of the crowd would have gone home by now or gone to the nightlife area a few streets over. One look at the digital clock on display told him that it was almost ten. “We were supposed to be there one hour ago,” Craig grumbled. “Where the hell is McCormick?”

“He says they’re stuck in traffic around the corner.” Stan was fumbling around with his phone, placing it on the dashboard before picking it up to look at it again. It was starting to grate on Craig’s nerves, especially when Stan kept checking  _ every few seconds _ . The constant ‘click click click’ of the screen flickering on and off went on long enough that Craig’s patience snapped.

“Stop doing that.” Craig reached over and snatched the phone from Stan’s hand, yanking the glovebox open and throwing it inside. He shut and blocked it with his arm. “What the hell’s up with you?”

“What the hell, Craig, I just bought that!” Stan scrambled for his phone, but Craig refused to budge. “I swear if there’s a scratch on it…”

“Why are you acting like some lovestruck teenager waiting for their crush to text back?” Craig asked, frowning. “It’s annoying.”

Stan crossed his arms with a huff. “What are you talking about? I’m just waiting for the orders from the Captain, nothing else,” he replied, although he refused to meet Craig’s gaze. “I just want this mission over and done with. You’re being such an asshole, Craig. Just let me have my phone back.”

“No. If you continue doing that, I swear I’ll go insane. Don’t touch my glovebox. I keep more than just your phone in there.” Craig returned to watching the parking lot for suspicious figures. The orders from Token earlier had been to wait in place until Kenny arrived with their tech, so clearly Stan wasn’t telling the truth. He cranked up the radio, the voices on the news station growing louder in the enclosed space of the car.

_ “...rates are rising in the city, so folks, be careful when you go out late at night. Traffic is bad along the road to city hall due to an unfortunate accident along _ _ — _ _ ” _

“Hey, Craig, can I talk to you about something?” Stan asked suddenly.

Craig sent him an annoyed look. “What? Why don’t you go talk to Broflovski? Aren’t you guys buddy-buddy and all?”

“That’s the problem. Lately, I feel like Kyle is avoiding me,” he said. Craig thought back to the past few days, but there wasn’t anything different between the two, not that he could recall. Stan was back to shifting around in his seat, frown set into his forehead. He hadn’t made a move to retrieve his phone from the glovebox yet.

“You did something, didn’t you?”

“Why did you assume that I did something?” Stan fired back at that accusation, brows furrowed together angrily. After a moment of glaring, his shoulders sagged in defeat and he sunk back into the seat in defeat. “Okay, I might have said something to him, but I didn’t know he was going to be like this…”

Honestly, Craig didn’t need or want to hear more, but the other man looked so glum laying there in his seat. He supposed he could humour him until Kenny arrived, which Craig hoped was soon. “So?” he prompted.

“You know how we went drinking last week and then Kyle brought me home, right? Well, Kyle brought me back to his apartment and we were alone, so in the moment of drunkenness, I might have said something to him… We may or may not have, uh,  _ tangoed _ in his bedroom…”

“No, for the love of God, don’t elaborate,” Craig said, holding up a hand to stop him there. He cringed at the mere thought of his co-workers banging. “I don’t need to know the sort of dirty business you two do behind closed doors, but I doubt that was what caused whatever this thing,” he made a gesture at Stan, “going on between you two now.”

Stan dropped his head into his hands. “I may or may not have told him a few days later that it had been a mistake and that we should just forget it altogether,” he mumbled. “He agreed with me, saying that it was fine. I thought we were going back to, you know, before all this shit happened. Then, he started to put this distance between us. I can’t even say ‘hi’ to him without him turning away.”

“You’re such a disaster,” Craig muttered, rolling his eyes. “I knew that Broflovski has been carrying a torch for you since back during our training six years ago.  _ Everyone _ does. Of course everything isn’t just ‘fine’.” He made air quotes when he said ‘fine’.

The other man’s eyes became confused when he turned to look at Craig. “Wait, what? You can’t be serious,” Stan said. “Does that mean  _ I’ve _ been a jerk this entire time?”

Suddenly, a loud tapping sound came from Craig’s side of the window, effectively cutting off their conversation. A dark-haired lady leaned into view, causing her silky black hair to cascade down past her shoulder. She batted thick-lashed eyes at him, tapping on the window with painted nails again, then motioned downwards. Craig wound the window down an inch.

“Hey there, hot stuff. Mind giving me a ride?” Her voice was low and sultry as they left her red-stained lips. She winked at him. “I’ll make it worth your time.”

“Stop wasting time and hand over the stuff, McCormick,” Craig said, flipping him off. “We’re running late because of you.”

The woman, no,  _ Kenny  _ pouted. “Aw, you’re no fun, Craig,” he sighed. “After all this time Bebe took to make me look pretty and you won’t humour me. I even wore these stripper heels for you. Just kidding, of course.” Yanking the door open, Kenny threw in the duffle bag he had been carrying, which Craig caught easily. Unzipping the bag, he pulled out a box containing the communication devices, handing one over to Stan before attaching his own to his shirt collar.

“Kenny? Is that really you?” Stan asked, momentarily distracted from wallowing in his thoughts. “I could almost mistake you for an actual woman.”

“As long as he doesn’t talk, he should be able to fool anybody.”

“Hey, it’s rude to talk shit behind a lady’s back. And my name isn’t Kenny, it’s Kendall. Well, for tonight anyway.”  Kenny was smoothening out his shirt, then tucked a lock behind his ear. “Your fake IDs are in the bag too. The van should be arriving outside the Hazelnut Horse in about, eh, five minutes. I’ll go on ahead first. It’s a pain walking in these heels, but man, they make my legs look good. I might ask Bebe if she’ll let me keep ‘em.”

Kenny left as fast as he came, leaving Craig and Stan to settle into their roles. “Greggory Marker,” Craig read, picking up a fake ID with his photograph. Well, a photograph of what he looked like six years ago. “Who came up with these?”

“Mine says Daniel Marker. Wait, why are our surnames the same? Does this mean we have to pretend to be brothers?” Stan scrunched his nose up in disgust.

“I certainly don’t want to be related to you, Marsh,” Craig retorted, pocketing the ID as he got out of the car. “But we’re already running late, so we better head on over.” He flipped the switch on for his communication device, wincing when he heard loud static on the other end. “Broflovski’s still not done yet?”

“About what we discussed earlier… Can you not tell Kyle about it?”

“I have better things to do than talk about your love life with Broflovski, so no, I won’t tell him anything,” Craig replied without missing a beat.

“Thanks, man.” Stan let out a breath. “All right. Let’s go.”

\-----

Craig almost expected the bouncer to deny them entry at their blatantly fake IDs, but with only a simple glance and a nod, they found their way inside of the Hazelnut Horse. It was every bit of a strip club like how Craig had imagined. Metal poles, a combination of dim and flashy lights, loud dance songs blasting throughout the room…

One look and he knew that they were going to have a hard time looking for the target. Stan nudged him in the side, beckoning for Craig to follow him to a corner. They found themselves leaning against the wall away from the crowd, casual enough for people to barely give them a passing glance. Only few people came by this area, making it easier for them to talk if they kept their voice low.

“So, did you find the target?” Stan asked quietly, tapping on the hidden microphone on his collar as he pretended to adjust it. Craig continued to scan the room for the target but to no avail. The lights were too dim for him to figure out faces in here, let alone a target they didn’t know the identity of. He watched Stan carefully to make sure he wasn’t still fixated on that thing with Kyle. Luckily, Stan had gone into his usual undercover persona.

“ _ We’ve got eyes on the entrance, but no, the target hasn’t arrived or left yet,”  _ Kyle replied, accompanied by the sound of typing. When Craig listened closely, he sounded like usual, albeit a little more stiff. Barely noticeable. “ _ I’ll run a scan when we get hold of the interior cameras. _ ”

“Well, let us know if you see him.” Stan moved off where he had been leaning against the wall and headed towards the main stage. Having no solid plan, Craig followed him. They found themselves seated near the main stage, a place where they had a view of the entrance and the surrounding area. Craig found himself sinking into the seat of the couch, listlessly watching a lady dance on stage, although he had to admit that she had the skill to slide gracefully down the pole.

Stan was looking out into the crowd, arms crossed. His eyes shifted over to look at Craig briefly and he leaned over. “Come on, Greggory, stop looking like you want to commit mass murder,” Stan said in a low voice. “Look happier.”

“Believe or not,  _ Daniel _ , this is how I look normally.” Craig narrowed his eyes at Stan. “Got a problem with that?”

“ _ Boys, both of you behave yourselves. I will not have you jeopardising this mission because you two can’t get along,” _ Token scolded them with a stern voice.  _ “We’ve successfully obtained access to the indoor surveillance system. It is a possibility that the target is already inside, so we’ll wait for the results from the scan. For now, just lay low and observe.” _

Lay low and observe, huh? Craig sighed. Could this night get any longer? From what he saw of the other people seated around the main stage, they were mainly well-dressed businessmen. Now that he thought about it, the Hazelnut Horse was a semi-decent club, unlike the establishments tucked away in street corners. There were a few business districts that they passed earlier on the way to the parking lot, from what he remembered of the city layout.

He felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw that it was the lady who had been dancing up stage earlier. “Hey there, handsome,” she greeted, twirling a strand of her red hair around her finger. Craig could tell that it was a wig by the strange shine it had. “Mind if I join you?”

“I’m…” Craig began to say, until he noticed Stan mouthing the words ‘act natural’ behind her. “Sure.”

Her lips stretched into a smile and she made herself comfortable on the edge of the seat. “So what brings you here? I don’t usually see a man like you in these places often.”

Craig’s gaze flickered over to Stan, brain whirring to come up with a decent excuse. “My brother here has been dumped recently,” he lied smoothly, jabbing his thumb in Stan’s direction. From the corner of his eye, he could see Stan giving him an unpleasant look, though it quickly morphed into misery.  “I thought it would be a good idea to bring him here to cheer him up.”

She laughed. “Well, this isn’t the best place for broken hearts, but I believe the girls can make him forget about it for the night,” she suggested, lowering her lashes. Her fingers trailed up his arm. “Of course, I can keep you company while he’s distracted by them.”

“ _ The scan picked up on the target. He’s near the bar area, alone. I ran his identity through the database and found that his name is Bob Roberts, who has previously been charged of assault on two occasions. He’s on the phone talking to someone, possibly related to the crime lord.”  _ Kyle’s voice came in just as the dancer shifted closer to him, her hand close to his arm. “ _ You’re terrible at acting, Craig. _ ”

“No, I’m not,” he muttered angrily under his breath. When the lady threw a confused look his way, he pulled up a tight smile, or what he thought was an attempt at a smile. “What were you saying?”

“ _ The target is on the move. He’s heading towards the area with the private lounges. Find a way to get there. I’ll be able to pick up on the phone call if you’re within range.” _

“Maybe you’ll be more comfortable if we move on to a more private place?” she suggested. “There’s the private lounge that I could offer you more of my... services. It’s in the back, where the VIP rooms are.”

This was his chance. Craig nodded, causing her smile to widen. She got up from the seat, beckoning for him to follow her. They made their way across the club, weaving between the patrons. He spotted a man wearing a hood, phone to his ear at the doorway. Was that the target? The man pushed past the door and disappeared, the door swinging shut behind him.

“This way,” the lady said, bringing Craig’s attention back to her.

The private lounges were separate rooms linked by one corridor, which was dimly lit by a pink bulb. As they made their way in, Craig slowed his pace, glancing through the cracks of the open doors every now and then. He almost stopped in his tracks when he saw the familiar hood, the back turned to the door. But then he heard the clacking heels stop, so he tore his gaze from the door and back onto his lady companion.

Once they were in, she closed the door behind them. He felt hands move up until they were draped around his neck. She was pressed flush against him, so close he could feel  _ everything _ . He didn’t know what to do next, opting to just stand there. “So, what will it be tonight?” she whispered, eyes dark. “I can do anything you want me to, for a price.”

“ _ Hey, Craig, I lost sight of you when you entered the back. They don’t own security cameras there, which I guess helps to give their customers more privacy. Good job on getting in, but don’t enjoy yourself too much,”  _ Kyle said.

_ No one was enjoying anything here _ , Craig thought as he gritted his teeth. As much as he wanted to pry her away from him, that would have been very rude, especially since he had accepted her offer. Gently, he pulled her hands off his neck and took a step back. “You’re very pretty and all,” he started, watching her take a step back in confusion, “but, uh, you see… I’m not, uh… I don’t...”

“ _ Real eloquent there, Craig. _ ” Kyle needed to just... go away for a moment. It wasn’t helping him to think of something to salvage the situation.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s going on here?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Sorry if I gave you the idea that I was interested or something,” Craig muttered, avoiding eye contact with her. God, this was so embarrassing. “But I just don’t swing that way.”

“If you’re not interested, you could have said so,” she sighed, running a hand through her red hair. “It’s always the good-looking ones that’s taken or gay. There goes my pay for the next hour...”

Now he just felt bad for her. Pulling out his wallet, he took out a hundred dollar bill (one of the few Token had handed to them as ‘expense cash’) and pressed it in her hand. She frowned up at him. “Here, take this,” he said, already heading for the door. “If you don’t mind me, I’ll just be leaving.”

He slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him quietly. There wasn’t anyone out in the hallway. Carefully, he made his way to the room next door, peering through the gap. He could barely pick out the voice inside, but from what he could see, it was the hooded man from before.

“Hey, Broflovski, if I throw in my microphone near the target, will you be able to hear it?”

“ _ Yeah, if you get near enough to the source, I can enhance it so that I’ll be able to hear it. Why?” _ Without answering Kyle’s question, Craig unpinned the tiny bead from his collar, flicking it through the gap. He watched as it bounced unnoticed onto the ground by the man’s feet. “ _ What the hell, Craig, why did you do… Is that the target’s…?” _ There was the sound of furious typing on the other end. _ “All right, I’m recording the conversation now. Captain, any instructions for Agent Tucker?” _

“ _ Return and regroup with Agent Marsh, then head back to Headquarters. Agent McCormick will take care of the cleanup. That’s all. _ ”

Craig made his way out of the corridor, wincing at the sudden bright lights. He had forgotten how bright it was near the main stage. Stan was still where Craig had left him, talking to one of the dancers. “Hey, St– Daniel,” Craig called out. He almost forget that they were using fake names. He suddenly recalled the lie he spun earlier. “I know you’re heartbroken and all, but it’s late. We should get going.”

Stan got the hint immediately, turning to smile to the dancer. “Thank you for your time,” he said, sliding her a fifty-dollar note. “I had fun.”

Leaving had been as easy as entering, Craig found out. He turned back every now and then to check that they weren’t being followed back to the parking lot. Thankfully, the car was still there in one piece. Dougie, the Agency’s mechanic, would have been pissed if there had been any damage to it.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Stan said, plucking the communications device from his collar.

“For you. I had a terrible time,” Craig grumbled. “Anyway, I have a feeling the night isn’t over yet.”

\-----

There was coffee waiting for them in the conference room and Craig groaned at the sight of those white styrofoam cups. It could only mean one thing: overtime. The support team were all there barring Kenny, who was still back at the Hazelnut Horse clearing up evidence. Jimmy waved to him as he took a seat at the table. “So, did you enjoy yourselves, fellas?” he asked amicably, sipping from a cup.

“No, not really. I’m still suffering from the trauma of having to interact with actual people,” Craig picked up one of the coffee and took a gulp, making a face at the bitter taste. Stan took the seat next to his, reaching out for one cup of the dark bean concoction.  “So, how’s the progress going?”

Kyle crossed his arms. “Heidi’s running a search on Bob Roberts,” he informed. “It’s going to take a while since she’s the only Intel agent here at this hour.”

“Good job retrieving the information we needed, Agent Tucker, but next time, be more discreet about it,” Token said. “You still need to work on those… acting skills.”

“There’s a reason why I’m usually on the roof and not on the ground,” Craig grumbled. “And it doesn’t help that someone kept giving unhelpful comments in my ear.” He directed his glare at Kyle.

“That’s enough,” Token cut in. “Agent Marsh will remain here to assist Commander Broflovski while Agent Tucker and Agent Valmer will go down to Intel to assist Agent Turner. The next step in our operation is to find out who the target Bob Roberts has been talking to and what they were talking about. The faster we can finish this, the closer we are to going home.”

“Actually, I can go down to Intel to help out Heidi. I’ve been reviewing the past few cases of laundering in the area from the Archives, so I’ll be more familiar with the information. Agent Tucker and Agent Marsh should rest up and remain on standby for now until we find something new,” Kyle explained, eyes shifting to glance briefly at Stan, then back to Token. “Captain, is that alright with you?”

Token nodded,  turning to the two field agents. “Agent Marsh, Agent Tucker, as Commander Broflovski has suggested, both of you are dismissed for now, but remain on standby in case we have any updates. Good work tonight.”

 

The moment he closed the conference room door behind him, Craig heard a loud sigh. “I’m so tired,” Stan mumbled, pulling on his knit hat. He stretched, joints popping, then headed for the elevator. “I’m going home to sleep. See you tomorrow, Tucker.” As much as he shared the same sentiments, Craig knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at home, with his occasional nightmares plaguing his dreams. 

So, Stan hadn’t been lying about the weird thing going on between him and Kyle. Watching the other man’s retreating figure, Craig figured that whatever was going on between them, they could settle it themselves.

“Hey, Agent Tucker, was it?” Craig turned around to find Jimmy grinning up at him.

“You can just call me Craig,” he replied, taking a sip from the cup in his hand. Ugh, he had never liked black coffee and the lukewarm temperature only made it worse. “Don’t care for titles and all that shit.”

“I feel the same way; call me Jimmy. There’s no need for us to be so formal if we’re going to work together.” He gestured towards the elevator. “Are you not going home yet?”

“I won’t be able to sleep,” he said, holding up the styrofoam cup. “Might as well help out here and demand overtime pay from the Captain.”

Jimmy laughed. “Good idea. Well, it was fun chatting with you, but I have to return to Interpol now. They’re expecting a report from me,” he said, waving the notebook in his hand.

“Need me to drive you back?” Craig offered.

“Thanks, but I already have someone coming to pick me up. See you tomorrow.”

“Hey, Agent Valmer, I was wondering… Oh, you’re still here,” Kyle said, staring right at Craig.

Craig shrugged, moving to the side. “Don’t mind me,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Just do what you got to do.”

Leaving the two to talk more, he swiped through the messages. Clyde, as usual, expressed everything with  _ those damned faces _ . He sent back a brief summary of what happened earlier, leaving out the parts of his embarrassing moments. Well, Clyde was bound to pick up on it anyway. His friend was probably asleep now, so he was going to have to find some other way to entertain himself.

When he looked up, Jimmy was gone. Kyle was watching at him with tired eyes. “If you want to be useful, follow me.”

 

The Intel room was how Craig had remembered it to be: large screens covering every available wall surface, multiple tables with mounted CPUs and folders stacked high in semi-neat piles. He almost tripped on a cable on the way in.

“Hey, Heidi,” Kyle called out, knocking on the door. “How’s it going?”

Heidi looked up from the monitor, waving them over. “It’s still in progress. Running through the database to look for someone associated with Bob Roberts might take a while. I’ve narrowed it down to the criminal records in the area for the past ten years, but there’s too many in the system. I’ve hit a lag no less than six times,” she said. “Did you bring me coffee?”

“Here,” Kyle held out a cup. “Not sure how long it has been out for.”

“Doesn’t matter. Coffee’s coffee.” Heidi poured the contents into her mug. “We might be here until morning and get nothing. He might not even be related to this case. Anything else we will need to obtain a physical copy from the local police.”

“I was thinking, why don’t we do a background check on the owner of the Hazelnut Horse?” Kyle suggested. “Since the target was able to get into the back easily, it means that he is either familiar with the building security or the owner, and I bet it’s the owner.”

“Good idea. I’ll set up a search into the owner now.”

Craig was lost between their conversation, wandering off to look at the large screen. There were many profiles popping up and disappearing rapidly, so fast that he couldn’t read one before it disappeared before his eyes. There were several files open on the table nearby, so he browsed through them. Mostly they were about possible money laundering cases in the past few years or so, information neatly summarised on a piece of paper written in Heidi’s neat writing.

They were still at it when he returned to them. “...so in conclusion, it would be within this area of the city,” Kyle said, circling on an open map with his finger. “From his conversation, we could tell that he knows someone important who visits this place often,” he jabbed at a spot on the map, “hence why it’s most likely for this man to operate in nearby areas too.”

“But unfortunately, all we have to go on is just circumstantial evidence. Unless we’re able to actually get hold of his phone, we won’t be able to confirm your theory. If we just go on this path, we might end up wasting time on a dead end,” Heidi argued. “We may have to conduct a second investigation, but this time the target might recognise the field agents. Unfortunately.”

“I hate to admit it, but you’re right…” Kyle sighed, rubbing at his temples. “You know what, we’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll head down to the police station tomorrow to request a copy of the files.”

Heidi’s gaze stopped onto Craig and she blinked. “Oh, Craig, would you mind popping down into the Archives for a while?” she asked, pulling out a card from within a stack of paper. “Here, I’ll write down what you need to get.” She scribbled down on a piece of paper, and as the list got longer and longer, Craig could feel his frown getting deeper and deeper. “You just have to get these files and bring them back here. Thanks!”

Taking the card and the list from Heidi, he could count at least twenty files there. Well, he better get started on it.


	8. [Insert Meme Here]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very strange dream and more side drama.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the late update, but recently I was busy with other stuff and motivation is at an all-time low with the holidays around whoops
> 
> But hey early Merry Christmas!

_This was all so familiar, yet so foreign. Craig found himself back in the Hazelnut Horse, staring up at an empty stage. He was getting a sense of deja vu, though he wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Why was he here again? Before he could question it any further, the crowd around him suddenly erupted into cheers as the room was plunged into darkness. A lone spotlight shone onto the figure up on the stage, bathing his skin with a fluorescent glow._

_There he was, watching him with those vibrant blue eyes. His gaze would flicker out to the crowd around before they would land back on him again as he took the first step on stage, one foot over the other with grace. Craig didn’t notice the music was playing in the background when all attention was focused on the blonde in front of him._

_The blonde walked down from the stage, heels clacking with every step he took. He reached his hand out towards Craig, fingers curling around the tie, gently yet firmly pulling him forward. With the sudden close distance between them, he could see a smirk stretching out on the face before him. Craig could feel his gaze boring into him, unblinking blues glittering with mischief. “Craig,” his name came out as a soft whisper, sending a shiver down his spine from the way he said it. He didn’t know what the blonde said next, eyes watching his soft lips move with every word._

_Craig wasn’t sure what he really wanted to do here. He wanted to hear him say his name again, he wanted to pull him closer, he wanted to have a taste of those soft lips. But something was nagging at the back of his mind, stopping him from moving an inch. Twitch was impossibly close now, so close he could feel the other man’s breath. “Kiss me,” he said, and with a jerk, everything went tumbling into darkness._

Everything was too bright when Craig startled awake, blinking away the brightness of the office lights. His sudden movement caused the pile of files on the desk to crash down onto the ground. Craig was too tired to pick them up, feeling his joints cracking with every movement.

He must have fallen asleep while he was looking through some of the old case files, noting some of them crumpling slightly from his nap. “Damn it,” he sighed, rubbing at his stinging eyes. That had been such a good dream too. _Why did dreams always have to end at the good part?_ The vivid details of the dream came flooding back into his mind, and a second ‘damn it’ left his lips. Admittedly, it wasn’t the weirdest dream that he’d ever had and he doubted that he would actually do it, but the sight of Twitch with three tons of makeup and heels on was strangely… titillating.

One glance at his phone told him that it was already late morning. There was a message from Token, telling him to take the morning off. A nice gesture, though he didn’t have to tack on the _‘ur not at ur best when u lack sleep_ ’ at the end of his message. He guessed that Clyde would have started their training by now, since this was the time they usually returned from their early morning jog. He fired off a message to Clyde, ‘ _where u guys at now? Done running?’_

The reply he received was instant. _‘Yeah. 6th floor, conference room. U coming up?’_ He decided to check up on his trainees’ progress, to make sure that Clyde wasn’t goofing off with them.

\-----

Craig blinked at the sight before him, then promptly shut the door.

He was definitely dreaming. He definitely did _not_ hear Clyde utter a word of that accursed phrase and he definitely did _not_ see Ike Broflovski dabbing at him. “I’m still in bed. I’ll wake up to a bright and early morning, everything is just a dream,” he mumbled under his breath. His eyes were still stinging from being awake the whole night, head pounding slightly from the lack of sleep. He rubbed at his temples, praying for everything to go away.

“Good morning, Craig. You, uh, don’t look so good. Something wrong?”

Whipping around, Craig came face-to-face with Twitch, who was watching him with some concern. The blonde was holding a water bottle in his hand, but Craig’s eyes moved up to his face, where blonde strands were plastered to his cheeks with sweat. Suddenly, the image of Dream Twitch flashed through his mind and Craig had to look away, recalling how good the blonde had looked in his dream. He hadn’t seen Twitch since their impromptu coffee ‘date’. “Oh, hey Twitch,” Craig greeted, commending himself for his ability to remain monotonous in every situation. There was something more important to deal with at the moment. He jabbed a finger at the door. “What the _hell_ is going on in there?”

Twitch glanced over at the offending object, grimacing. “I don’t know what they were doing, but we were taking a break, then Clyde showed Ike something on his phone. They giggled and showed it to me, but I didn’t get it. It’s something that I don’t want to be involved in, so I decided to step out to refill my bottle.” He held up said bottle. “It’s been happening for a week now.”

Was it the memes again? “I swear, if Clyde says ‘ _here comes dat boi_ ’ to me again when I step through that door, I will break something,” Craig muttered under his breath. “What did you do for training while I was away?” he asked, as if he hadn’t asked Twitch before. They had exchanged messages over the week that he hadn’t been there to take over the training, though they had a casual chat now and again when Craig couldn’t sleep at night. Surprisingly, the rookie was up at odd hours of the night to reply to his messages.

“We had a few hand-to-hand combat sessions, including one where we had to use ‘unconventional weapons’. I didn’t know there could be another use for a coffee pot,” Twitch said. “Aside from those, Clyde briefed us on how to watch and approach a target. He also mentioned about giving us lessons later. I’m kind of worried how it’s going to go, since I’m not really that good with talking to people I don’t know.”

That made Craig consider his own acting abilities and he winced. He hadn’t scored well in that aspect during his own training, which definitely showed during the last mission. That was left to Clyde, who was more open and friendly between the two of them. Talking about which… “I suppose I can’t delay it any longer,” Craig said with a sigh, pushing the door open.

Clyde was seated at the head of the table, fiddling around with the cable plugged into the laptop. Thankfully, he seemed to feel the murderous aura emanating from Craig and decided to go with the ‘wave cheerfully to him’ route. “Morning, Craig,” Clyde greeted, acting as if he hadn’t just memed at Craig ten minutes ago. “I’d never thought I’d see the day that you would come to work later than me.”

“Technically, I’ve been here since yesterday. I can’t be late if I never left,” he countered. “Captain says I’ve got the morning off and never to do something so stupid again. I agree with him; overtime is hell. Why did I willingly do this again?”

“Hey, Craig,” Ike greeted, looking up from his phone.

“That’s ‘sir’ to you, brat. Learn some manners.” Craig pulled out one of the chairs, sighing as he fell back into the comfortable seat. “So, what are you doing today?” he asked, eyeing the slide filled with colourful text and pictures. Twitch slid into the seat opposite him, picking up a notebook from the table.

“We’re going to do your absolute hated subject today: acting.” Clyde grinned. With a flourish of his hand, the lights in the conference room dimmed. He placed the remote back down onto the table. “I’ll be going through the do’s and don'ts of interacting with people during field missions, especially with the target so that you won’t arouse suspicion.”

“Wake me when it’s over,” Craig groaned, pulling down his chullo over his eyes to block out light. “I’m already finished with this shit, I don’t want to go through this again.”

“You should find this a helpful reminder, Craig. Anyway, as I was saying…”

 

Craig felt someone shake him awake, then he realised blearily that he had actually fallen asleep. He groaned, grabbing at his face until he realised that his chullo must have slid off his head at some point. “What, is it over already?” he asked, rubbing at his eyes. He winced at the brightness. The lights in the room were back on, though both Clyde and Twitch were gone. He yawned, then stretched, feeling the pop in his joints. Damn, he was still tired even after that short nap.

“Yeah, you were snoring loudly at the end of the lesson. Clyde told me to let you sleep a little longer, but he also said to wake you after I was done with practice.” Ike had a few strips of paper in his hand and he was plucking at them. “Twitch’s with him in the other room running through a scenario.”

“How did you do?” Craig asked, picking up one of the fallen strips on the table. Scanning through the contents quickly, he found it rather similar to the settings in a typical spy movie. Well, the things they actually did were just like the spy movies, just less glamorous and more long hours of work. Oh, not to forget the chance of dying whenever there was any action involved. The old wound on his arm twinged at the thought.

“I needed to be more natural, but unfortunately most of the reference I have are from movies,” Ike said. He looked over at Craig hopefully. “Do you think you could give me some helpful pointers?”

“Bold of you to assume that I’m good at that, but you’ll have better luck asking someone else. As much as I hate to admit it, Marsh is probably the best person to ask.”

“I already asked him before, but he’s being such a killjoy right now. Especially with the whole Kyle thing going on. That’s all he ever talks about with me: Kyle this, Kyle that,” Ike complained. “I don’t know what Kyle’s been up to and I don’t really care.” He crushed the paper strips in his hand, throwing them down onto the table. Huh, the Broflovskis were getting along worse than he originally thought.

Craig wondered how he could approach this subject tactfully. He couldn’t be too blunt about it. “Why do you hate Kyle so much?” _Nailed it._

Ike gave him a sullen look. “I don’t really _hate_ him,” Ike admitted. “He’s so overbearing sometimes. You’ve worked with him, you know how he is. When he sets his mind on something, it’s so hard to get him to change it.” The younger boy was right; there was a reason why Kyle wasn’t with the field agents anymore. His stubbornness had gotten the best of him at the worst possible moment, screwing up the entire mission, causing the target to escape and resulted in months of overtime to track them down again. Luckily, no one had been injured badly then, though it had been close. Wendy had been the one to suggest that Kyle would have been better in Comms, where he could put his intellect to better use. Craig wondered if Kyle had ever told Ike about this, but knowing the older Broflovski and his pride, probably not.

“He’s talked about you a lot. You know, before you joined. My younger brother this, my younger brother that, like some proud parent. Pretty sure he’s just looking out for you,” Craig reasoned. “Maybe both of you should sit down and talk it out.”

“I’d already told you, he doesn’t like that I don’t listen to him,” Ike grumbled. He took out his notebook and glared at the pages angrily, effectively cutting off the rest of the conversation.

Watching Ike like this reminded Craig of his own younger sister, who had often or not caught onto the Tucker family tradition fairly young and flipped him off whenever they had an argument. Tricia was a pain in the ass in their younger years, although she had been fairly supportive when he said that he was going away from their hometown for work. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t visited his family in years, not since he had joined the Agency. He told himself that he would go back this Christmas, but with the workload he had, it wasn’t going to happen.

There was a knock on the door, then a head of messy blonde hair popped in. “Clyde says that you can have a second try, Ike,” Twitch said. “He’s waiting for you in the other room.” He looked to Ike, then to Craig. “Did I miss something?”

“No, not really.” Ike pushed himself away from the table, got up and left. Craig sighed. Maybe he could ask Clyde about it later. He had a feeling that Ike wasn’t going to talk to him about it now. Clyde was a better person that Ike could talk to.

Twitch sat down at the spot that Ike occupied previously, frowning at the crushed paper on the table. “Is this about Kyle?” he asked, picking up the fallen strips of paper, smoothening it out with his fingers. Craig nodded. “I’ve noticed it, but I’m not sure how I can help him. I don’t have any siblings, so I can’t say I understand what he’s feeling.”

“I’m not good at talking about this either.” Craig sighed for the nth time that day, leaning back in his chair. “Don’t know why people think I’m good at figuring out this shit.”

“It’s because you’re always so chill and all,” Twitch said with a small smile. “I guess that makes you dependable.”

His heart skipped a beat. Craig blinked, unsure of how to reply to that. “What did Clyde say about your acting?” he asked, attempting to change the subject. It was just a friendly comment, nothing more, though it didn’t help that Twitch had a nice smile. “I’ve only heard that Ike needed to be less like a movie actor.”

Twitch put a hand to his chin in thought. “He said I was a natural, but I was just only following what I’ve seen other people do. Movies are a great reference, but I feel you can learn more by watching people.”

“I agree.” Craig let out another yawn. He was more tired that he had originally thought. Maybe he should go grab a cup of something at the nearby Harbucks, but the mere thought of the stale coffee he had been drinking all night made his stomach churn. He didn’t need another reason to dislike coffee more than he already had. The blonde returned to looking at the various strips, thumbing through them.

“Clyde talked a lot about rookie training back in the days too. Is it true that Stan was the top of your class?” Twitch asked. “He’s much more different than I expected him to be.”

Craig made a sour face as he recalled the memory of that day. Stan had a smug ass look when they had announced it. “Technically, it was an overall score,” Craig pointed out. “He might have been top dog at every aspect of physical training, but there was still some things he couldn’t be the best at, like–”

The door slammed open, startling both occupants in the room. Kenny stepped in, still dressed in the crop top and short shorts of his disguise, although the wig and heels he had been wearing before was gone. “Ah yes, Craig, I was looking for you!” Kenny exclaimed, making his way towards Craig. He leaned on the back of Craig’s chair. “Guess what? We found a major lead in our investigation, much thanks to me. Heidi’s squad is busy at work right now, but the Captain wants to see you. Something about a progress report.” He patted Craig on the shoulder. “Go on ahead, I’ll join you all when I’m done catching my breath. Agent Cox here can keep me company.”

Craig nodded, although he had a gut feeling that something was up, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “See you later. Good luck with practice,” Craig said, then stopped in his tracks. Oh right, Kenny didn’t tell him to meet _where_. “McCormick, where’s the Captain at now?”

“He’s down in Intel.”

“Ok, great.”

Craig had been slightly concerned about leaving Kenny with the other blonde, but he supposed he shouldn’t keep the Captain waiting. He passed by the other room, peering in. Ike was waving his arms around, pointing at the blank wall and Clyde was watching him intensely. It looked natural enough to him, though upon closer inspection, his movements did have a certain fakeness to it. Was that what Clyde meant? It only made him more self-conscious about his own acting.

He found it strange that Kenny ran all the way up from Intel, which was on the third floor, to the conference rooms that was three floors up. But then again, this was Kenny he was talking about, the local cryptid in their Agency that appeared suddenly at work one day. He did whatever he did, for whatever reasons he had. As long as it didn’t involve or affect him and the higher ups had no problems, Craig was fine with it.

The Intel office was bustling with activity like usual, although with the extra Comms officers in there, it was much more packed in the small room. He could barely find Token talking to Kyle, both of them looking up at the large screen. Once glance around and he realised that he was the only field agent there.

“Morning, Captain,” he greeted with a wave as he approached them. “McCormick said something about a lead?”

Token turned to him, nodding. “Agent McCormick has procured a cell phone that may have been owned by Bob Roberts. Allegedly, he found it in an alleyway trash can, where he had seen the target dispose of it. From what the Intel unit has found out so far, it’s a cheap phone with barely anything stored on it. Not even the SIM card was found.”

“So, how is that a lead?” Craig asked. He had hoped the Captain would just tell him outright what was going on, but so far, he wasn’t following. A phone in a bin without a traceable number, it could have just been trash. When someone disposed of a phone, it was highly unlikely for them to find any information from it since it would have been wiped clean.

“Let me finish,” Token said, tapping on the tablet in his hand. “Fortunate for us, the fingerprints on the phone matches to those of Bob Roberts and there are unidentified numbers found in the call log. They’re currently trying to trace the number back to the mobile company and eventually to the owner. With any luck, we’ll be able to identify the person that Bob Roberts had been talking to last night, and perhaps more.”

There was still one question left unanswered. “So, what do you need me in here for?” he asked. “You know I specialise more in sniping than anything else, right?”

Token frowned. “I didn’t call for you,” he clarified. “But once we have a definite suspect, you’ll have to be ready for action. Relay that to Agent Marsh and Commander Broflovski. You’re dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” Craig said, giving him a mock salute. “I’ll be sure to let the Dream Team know.” He received a sigh from Token, then the captain waved him away. Taking that as a signal to leave, Craig did.

He fired off messages to the Dream Team members on his way back to the conference room, tacking a ‘ _u better settle ur problems soon_ ’ onto the message to Stan. Craig would rather tackle a room full of bad guys than settle some relationship drama. If he had to go on one more mission with Stan moping about again, he would be _so_ pissed.

“Your rookie here is _very_ good at acting,” Kenny commented right as Craig stepped through the door. “Agent Cox is a natural at this.”

“I’m not that good. I was just trying out the pointers that Clyde gave earlier in the presentation.” Twitch scratched his cheek, looking sheepish. “It worked out better than I thought.”

Craig narrowed his eyes at Kenny. “You’d better not be picking on my rookies,” he said, taking a seat at the head of the table. As expected, the chair was more comfortable than the other ones in the room.

“Look, he doesn’t believe me, Richard. Why don’t you practise with him then?” Kenny held out a piece of paper to Craig, waving it in his face when Craig didn’t take it within five seconds.

“Fine,” Craig grumbled, snatching it out of Kenny’s hand. He read aloud the prompt on the paper. “‘You’re a double agent who infiltrated the ranks of an organisation and was recently captured by them. They have put you into interrogation, so you have to lie your way out of the situation.’ Wow, this is some really dark shit. Which movie did Clyde rip this off from?”

“That’s… very intense. I don’t think I can do it,” Twitch said, frowning. “I don’t know much about double agent missions since Clyde hasn’t mentioned about them yet, so I don’t know what to do. I think I would just cry if that happened to me.”

Craig crumpled it up and threw it at the bin in the corner of the room. It missed, bouncing off the wall and onto the floor. “This is stupid. If you’re bad enough to get caught while infiltrating, then perish,” he said, then realised what just left his mouth. “God dammit, Clyde.”

“Someone call for me?” Clyde asked as he entered the room. He yawned. “I’m tired, man. I forgot how taxing it is to deal with rookies.”

“Hey, I’m still here.” Ike pushed past Clyde, plopping himself into the seat next to Kenny. “And I didn’t do that bad. From the stories you told us, I can’t be worse than Craig, can I?”

“Oi,” Craig scowled at the audacity of his rookie. “What’cha trying to say?”

Clyde only laughed, giving his friend a pat of assurance on the back. “You have to admit that you suck at it, Craig. During our test, you delivered your lines so flatly that no one knew if you were acting or not. That’s the only reason you passed.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s not like I usually have to talk to people,” Craig grumbled under his breath. “I would rather not.”

A loud growl sounded from somewhere inside the room and all eyes went to Clyde, who looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I’m hungry. My stomach knows when it’s lunch better than I do,” he joked. “I’m in the mood for some tacos. Anyone wants to join me for lunch?”

“Only if you’re treating,” Kenny said, grinning wide when Clyde pulled a long face at him. “What can I say, nothing is more inviting than free food.”

“Fine,” Clyde gave in. “Hey Craig, are you coming too?”

Craig’s phone had been buzzing in his pocket for the past minute, so he took it out to look at the caller ID. He frowned. “Sorry, I need to pick this up,” he said, waving to them. “Go on ahead.”

They locked eyes for a moment, then Clyde nodded. “Sure. Hey, rookies, come along with us. I’ll buy you two some food too, for the good work this week. Craig, I’ll get the usual for you. Join us later,” he said, standing up and herding them out of the room. Craig waved back in thanks, waiting for them to leave before he looked at the eight missed calls.

He tapped onto the missed call on his phone, leaning back into the seat as he waited for the person to pick up on the other end. “I know you have problems, but you don’t have to call me eight times,” Craig said, once the dial tone stopped playing.

There was irritation in the voice on the other end, a voice he wasn’t expecting to hear. “Problems? I don’t have problems, Tucker. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyle snapped. “I only called because the Captain needs you down at Conference Room 2 right now.” Craig checked the caller ID, squinting down at the ‘Dream Team #1’ on the screen. Wasn’t that what he saved Stan’s number as? Wait, that meant that the message that he sent earlier went to the wrong person. He had half a mind to hang up on Kyle, but then the redhead let out a loud sigh over the phone. “Just get your ass down here in five minutes.”


	9. Everyday Is Taco Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Craig was pulled away from his lunch to go on a mission to meet the Chief of Police.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year! Thank you to everyone who has been reading my fic since last year and I really appreciate all the kudos and comments you've left and it encourages me to keep writing this AU.  
> I wish a good year ahead for everyone! (〃＾▽＾〃)
> 
> (Also I got into playing SOT and TFBW again so my updates might be slower oh no)

“So? Where’s the fire?” Craig asked, pulling out a seat. There was only the two of them present in the conference room, so clearly there was no rush for him to get down here at all. Kyle replied with a glare, the dark circles under his eyes making it more intense, but Craig wasn’t intimidated in the very least.

“The Captain has more important matters to attend to, so he told me to give you the mission briefing instead. You will be my investigation partner today,” Kyle said. He continued quickly before Craig started protesting. “We’re going to go to a few locations to pick up some documents. Unfortunately, he deemed us both to be unsafe drivers due to ‘lack of sleep’, so he assigned Stan as our designated driver,” he added, rolling his eyes.

“So you do have problems,” Craig said, looking pointedly at him and crossing his arms, “or you would have gone with Marsh like usual. Why do I have to go with you?”

“I’m not dealing with your pissy mood now when we have other things to worry about, so I’m going to stop you right there,” Kyle said, holding up a finger to Craig. “The mission always comes first and I’m pretty sure that the Captain told you to be ready at any moment. We’re going down to the police headquarters first, then to the mobile company. Anything else, we can discuss on the way.” He checked his phone. “Let’s go.”

All right, if Kyle wanted it that way, Craig wasn’t going to continue arguing with him.

Stan was already waiting for them downstairs in the garage, leaning against his sleek black car. He seemed nervous, glancing at Kyle before his gaze would dart somewhere else, then flicker back to the redhead. Craig could tell that Kyle was trying his hardest to avoid looking in Stan’s general direction, so he took the opportunity to get into the back of the car. Sprawling his long limbs out on the seats, he pulled out his phone. Moments later, he heard a tap on the window. Looking up, he saw a confused redhead peering in at him.

‘ _Mine,_ ’ he mouthed back at Kyle. That earned him an exasperated look from Kyle and he replied with the middle finger. Kyle returned the gesture, then grudgingly moved into the front passenger seat, still refusing to look at Stan. At this point Stan just looked upset, though he got into the car without another word.

They drove out into the city streets. The first few minutes were silent until Kyle took out his folder, papers rustling. “D-mobile is the phone company that owns the accounts of the phone numbers we retrieved from the call logs. We’ll be retrieving data from them, then the Intel unit will be running through the numbers and see if they are able to find the records and narrow down our lists of suspects,” he explained. “I’ll be going into the phone company myself, since it would look too suspicious to have such a shady-looking man following me in. Sorry, Craig, but with the way you handled the information gathering at the Hazelnut Horse, I don’t trust you with talking to the owner of D-mobile.”

Craig narrowed his eyes at the jab at him, but said nothing. He let out a noise of disagreement that sounded very much like _‘ugh_ ’, returning his attention to his phone. There was a message from Clyde with a photo attached and immediately he remembered why he didn’t want to come in the first place. “I’m missing out on Taco Tuesday,” he said loudly, enlarging the image of the delectable taco on his phone. Now his stomach was reminded that it was empty. “My taco is in imminent danger of being eaten by Clyde.”

Kyle turned back in his seat, unamused. “It’s Wednesday,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“Time is a social construct. It’s always Taco Tuesday.” Craig tapped out a reply on his phone to Clyde.

“Anyway, as I was saying, the owner of D-mobile has agreed to release the particulars to the Agency, but we require the proper documentation from the police before we can do anything else. I’ve put in a request for the SCA warrant to them, but I’m not sure how long it will take for them to process it.”

They stopped at a red light. “So, where are we going again?” Stan asked. “We’re not going to D-mobile HQ first?”

Kyle was thumbing through the papers repeatedly, though his gaze was focused outside. “The Chief of Police isn’t a great person to work with, but we’ve got no choice here,” he said, ignoring Stan’s question. “Craig, you’ll come along with me later. Your resting bitch face might help us in securing that document we need.”

“All right, the police headquarters then,” Stan grumbled under his breath. “You could have just told me.”

“Craig, can you tell Agent Marsh to step on it?” Kyle said, a little louder than he normally was. “We don’t have all day.” Craig rolled his eyes. So he was going to play _that_ game? How childish. He returned his attention to his phone, back to the picture of the taco and closed it. His finger hovered over the group chat, then sent a single lone sad face.

“In case you don’t remember, _Kyle_ , there are driving rules and regulations I have to follow,” Stan replied through gritted teeth. “And I’m the one driving here, so you don’t get to be the backseat driver in _my_ car.”

Affronted, Kyle whipped around to glare at Stan. “What? I’m not telling you _how_ to drive, just that we don’t have all day to do this.”

Stan turned to Kyle, grip tight on the wheel. “Sounds a lot like it, don’t you think? You’re being such an asshole.”

“Oh, I’m the asshole now? I’m not the one who keeps rubbing in that…” His voice trailed off when Craig let out a fake cough to remind them that he was still there in the back, being the audience to their argument. “Whatever. There’s no point in talking to you if you’re not going to be civil.” He turned as much of his back as he could to Stan, pointedly staring out the window. Now silence had descended into the car, the tension between them became so thick that Craig could almost feel it.

At that moment, Craig’s phone let out a beep. Twitch was the first to send one back a reply. ‘ _Your taco’s turning cold. It’s getting harder and harder to stop Clyde from eating it.’_ Attached was a picture of a taco with fingers reaching out for it, another blurred hand seemingly slapping it away.

_‘U might as well give it 2 him. There’s no point, I won’t make it back in time to have it.’_

_‘A shame. Wish you could be here too.’_

Craig let out another loud sigh, feeling his stomach rumble hungrily. He wondered if they could stop by a nearby fast food drive-thru for lunch, but looking at the dire situation now, food wasn’t up on the list of priorities. He took a quick snap of the situation up front, sending it to Clyde. ‘ _Save me from this bunch of losers._ ’ His phone buzzed with a reply immediately.

‘ _Sux 2 b u, bud. Early bird gets da worm.’_ Clyde sent back a picture of himself chomping onto a familiar-looking taco.

‘ _U traitor,_ ’ Craig fired back, tacking on an absurd amount of angry faces. ‘ _What happened 2 saving one for me?’_

‘ _Can’t help it. I luv tacos, man & u dun like dem cold. So, how long will u b out anyway?’ _

_‘Who knows? Gotta head 2 the police hq and d-mobile. Gonna take a while getting that warrant.’_

The lack of reply on Clyde’s end meant that he was probably busy eating. Briefly, he observed at the situation at hand. The two up front were still not talking to each other and Stan had cranked up the volume of the radio. Some pop song was playing on the radio, filling up the car with the funky beat. The upbeat tone of the song did nothing to improve the mood in the car. “How much longer is it to the police HQ?” Craig asked, going back to checking his emails. Sadly, there was none. He was quickly running out of things to distract himself with.

“Just around the next corner after this red light,” Stan replied, voice tense.

“Ugh, that’s still so damn far,” Craig muttered under his breath. “Hey, Broflovski, what are we going to do in the HQ again?”

“Like I told you before, we’re there to obtain a warrant. Legally, we aren’t allowed to just take the information from D-mobile,” Kyle said. “Too many issues that the Agency doesn’t want to deal with.”

“Just like you,” Craig muttered. Either he said it too softly for Kyle to hear or the redhead chose to ignore him.

“I’m not sure if you’ve met the Chief of Police before, Craig, but for the love of God, don’t piss him off,” Kyle warned. “I would have gone in myself but I need backup.” When Craig was about to protest, Kyle added, “Captain’s orders.”

“We’re here.”

They were parked outside the local police headquarters, one of the older buildings located in the street. Kyle got out of the car without another word, slamming the door shut behind him. Craig supposed he shouldn’t lag behind, but one look at Stan with his head on the steering wheel and he felt a little bad for him, but there wasn’t much he could say to him anyway.

Craig was able to catch up with the redhead easily, catching hold of the glass door before it slammed into his face. “Hey, Broflovski, don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on him?” he asked, catching hold of Kyle’s shoulder. Shrugging his hand off, Kyle glared back at him in warning.

“We’re not here to talk about _my_ problems, Craig. The _mission_ is our priority,” he emphasised in a low voice. Kyle closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Just… don’t say anything and leave everything to me.”

They approached the reception desk. The receptionist smiled up at them politely. “Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you today?” she asked.

“We’re here to see Chief Williams,” Kyle said testily.

“Give me a moment,” she replied, tapping out numbers on the phone and holding the receiver to her ear. A few minutes passed before she nodded and covered the speaker with her hand. “I’m sorry, but the Chief is busy at the moment. Do you have an appointment with him?”

Kyle took out his ID from his coat and Craig did the same, showing them to her. “We’re from the Agency,” he said, leaning over the counter to speak to her in a low voice. “This is an urgent matter that requires a meeting with the Chief of Police.”

She nodded and spoke into the phone once more, then returned it onto its holder. “He’ll be waiting for you upstairs in his office on the 6th floor, Mr Broflovski, Mr Tucker,” she said.

 

Before they entered the office, Kyle turned to Craig. “Remember what I said before, no pissing off the Chief of Police. That includes flipping him off, replying with snark, rolling your eyes, scoffing at anything he says, and…”

“Do you do this with Marsh too? He clearly failed at getting that stick out of your ass,” Craig interrupted, watching Kyle’s brows furrow deeper.

“Stop it,” he hissed. “I know what you’re trying to do and this childish tactic is not going to work. Focus.”

Craig rolled his eyes. “I just wanted to enjoy my Taco Tuesday,” he said flatly. He could see Kyle’s face scrunch up in disbelief.

“God, are you still hung up on that? I’ll buy you that goddamn taco if it gets you to behave,” he exclaimed.

The door opened and a large man peered out at them curiously. He didn’t look like the typical officer, so Craig assumed he must be the Chief’s assistant or something. “Are ya’ here to see the boss?” he asked, looking at the two men. “He’s right inside, ready to see you.”

Kyle nodded, earlier frustration dissipated as he smoothed down his coat. He narrowed his eyes at Craig, but didn’t say anything else. The man nodded, then pushed the door open to let them inside.

The first thing that caught Craig’s attention was the golden name plate on the desk that stated ‘NATHAN WILLIAMS, CHIEF OF POLICE’. Did all high-ranking people love that kind of shit or was that just his imagination? He stood to the side, watching the large man as he gestured for Kyle to have a seat in the chair. Craig shook his head when the man offered to bring him a chair, preferring to stand by the side and be ready to act in case it all went south.

“Good afternoon, Chief Williams,” Kyle said. “As you may know, the Agency requires your assistance in an important matter regarding an investigation that we are currently carrying out in this district in the city. You see, we need certain data from a mobile service company and for that, we require an SCA warrant.”

“Ah yes, Mr Broflovski. It has been some time since you last came here requesting a search warrant.” Chief Williams pushed himself away from his computer screen at last, turning to face Kyle. He linked his hands together, eyes shifting to look at Craig, then back to Kyle. His smile widened. “I’ve noticed that your usual partner has changed. This must be Mr Tucker, I presume?” he asked, adjusting his glasses.

“Yes,” came Kyle’s terse reply. He slid the folder across the desk towards the other man. “We have filled out and prepared the necessary paperwork for the processing of the warrant. If you would like to look through it, feel free to do so.”

“If I may.” He took out the documents and lay them on the table, scanning through the papers. “I see that you’re working with Interpol on this particular case,” he commented with a frown. “Never liked them. They always stick their noses where they don’t belong and take cases that rightfully belong to the local police.” He spent a couple more minutes flipping through the documents. “Most of it seem to be in order. I’ll send for someone to bring this over to the courthouse. Of course, this will take about a day or two to process, if everything goes well. Anything else, Mr Broflovski?”

“If it won’t be too much of a bother, I would like to request the records regarding an individual called Bob Roberts,” Kyle added. “The two cases of assault that he had been previously charged with, specifically.”

Chief Williams leaned back in his seat. “You know I can’t just keep giving information like this, especially to a private intelligence agency,” he said. “It wouldn’t be lawful of me to do so, whether it is in your client’s best interest or the country’s.” There was something about the way he was smirking that rubbed Craig the wrong way and his dislike for this particular man shot up instantly. He had complied in assisting them with the SCA warrant, so why not the records? “I’m afraid that you’ll need proper documentation if you want those records. I’m a very busy man.” He adjusted his glasses and Craig swore that he could see the green reflected in them from an open Solitaire game on his computer screen.

Kyle frowned. “What? I didn’t have to do that the last time.”

“Our station recently implemented this new official rule that states that any retrieval of records from our archives requires a filled application form and further accompanying documents.”

“We had an agreement that the police would assist us in providing the necessary information for our cases in exchange for—”

“And you don’t have the necessary paperwork. If you don’t mind, Mr Broflovski, I still have a warrant to process at the courthouse.” Chief Williams picked up the file, tapping it with the back of his hand.

Seeing that they would be getting nowhere in the conversation, Craig moved to place his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Thank you for your time,” he said, a gesture for them to leave. Kyle got up from his seat, fist clenched at his side. Without another word, both of them headed for the door.

The smirk on the police chief’s face only widened. “It’s been a pleasure. I’ll send word to you once your warrant has been approved. Oh, and you might want to look out for a certain Agent Valmer,” he added. “Just a little friendly advice from me.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Kyle replied, shutting the door behind him.

Once they were out of earshot from the office, Kyle threw his hands up in the air with frustration. “You have no idea how close I was to decking him in the face.”

“What a slimy prick,” Craig agreed, crossing his arms. “He definitely deserved at least a punch.”

“And risk our warrant going ‘missing’? No thanks, I’m not going to deal with that asshole unless absolutely necessary.” He sighed. “There’s not much else we can do until we get that warrant, so I guess that’s it for today. Tell Stan to drive you back on his way home and I’ll just take a cab back to HQ.” Now with all the frustration gone, Kyle looked tired. Pulling so many all-nighters was probably not good for his health in the long run, and Craig guessed that now Kyle didn’t have Stan telling him to go home and sleep, what with the _thing_ going on between them. It was definitely not a good idea to bring up the matter with Ike now, that much Craig knew.

“Hey, whatever’s going on between you and Marsh, it’d better not affect the mission,” Craig warned. “I can tell that both you and Marsh are distracted by it. You know how dangerous it is to be distracted during missions.”

“Like you’re one to talk.” Kyle’s tone was frigid. Damn, that was a low blow. “I don’t know where you got the impression that there’s something going on, but you can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. Tell that _asshole_ to stop.”

Craig raised a brow at him. “Sure, I’ll let him know.” With that, the two made their way back down. Kyle lingered at the receptionist area, waving for Craig to go on without him.

 

Craig had never seen anyone look so disappointed when he got into the front passenger seat of the car. Even without him asking, Craig could tell Stan was looking for Kyle from the way he kept glancing outside. “He must be really pissed at you if he doesn’t want to be in the same car as you,” Craig observed.

“I know. I don’t know how to talk to him now,” Stan admitted quietly. The silence in the car was filled with the soft murmurs of a slow love song from the radio.

“Me neither. That’s why I’m still a lonely ‘old fart’.” Craig pulled out his phone, typing in a search into Google. He opened the first result of the nearest taco places. After pushing the whole ‘Taco Tuesday’ thing, he had a sudden craving for tacos. “You already know I’m shit at giving advice.”

“Yeah, you are.” The nearest place that sold decent ones was right by the Headquarters, the one that Clyde had gone to. He wondered if they were still there or back at work already. There was one message from Clyde, mentioning that there was a surprise waiting for him back at home. As much as Craig appreciated Clyde’s surprises (not a whole lot actually), all he wanted to do now was to go home and sleep, maybe chug some cough syrup to help him along. He could already hear the disapproval from their resident medic.

“You don’t need to think too hard about it,” Craig muttered. “Just go with whatever. If he’s pissed, maybe you should leave him alone.” His phone buzzed with a message, one from ‘Broccoli II’. ‘ _You’re driving next time’_ was the simple message he received. Craig had half a mind to bring this matter up with Token, but simply the thought of his Look of Disapproval made him think otherwise. Technically, he didn’t have a set partner now, since Clyde was still under training in Comms, but Craig would still like to have his opinion considered.

‘ _U owe me a taco,’_ Craig reminded. He didn’t receive a reply, so he tucked the phone back into his pocket. “Hey, Marsh, where are you driving to?” he asked, realising now that he had no idea where they were going.

“Back to HQ?”

“Screw that, I’m going home to sleep. You know where I live, right?”

Stan only nodded mutely and flipped on the turn signal.

\-----

When he opened the door to his home, Craig could smell a certain something that wasn’t there before. He spotted a plastic bag on the table, mood instantly lifting. Nestled inside the bag was a box and paper napkins. A pleasant surprise to find coming home from a shitty day of being around the Dream Team.

Craig brought the box with him, settling into his couch. His table was messy with written plans for the next month or so of training for his rookies, which he had meant to pass on to Clyde. Moving the papers aside, he placed the box there and unearthed his treasure inside. He was pleased to find not one but two tacos in the box. Unfortunately, it was cold when he took it out of the box, but his stomach had been rumbling ever since his nose caught scent of it when he stepped into his home. He wasn’t going to be  _that_ picky about it; food was food.

“I love Taco Tuesday,” he said to nobody in particular, taking a bite. Taking a picture of the open box with one hand, he sent it to Clyde before he could finish it all. ‘ _Hey, this might be the best surprise from u yet.’_

His phone buzzed with a reply instantly. ‘ _U_ _should thank Twitch, he’s the one who bought them 4 u. Said something about not wanting to take advantage of me. A nice man, eh?’_

Oh no, they were not going down this path of conversation again. ‘ _U better not be implying that again. I told u, I’m not looking for a relationship now.’_ The dream from this morning flashed into his mind again. Craig tried to think it through rationally; his dream was influenced by the mission the night before, not to mention that he didn’t sleep much after. Admittedly, he liked Twitch more than he really should, though his dream had taken it to a whole new level he hadn’t really considered before. Well, now thanks to that, he was thinking about it. It made him feel guilty to think about his rookie that way, when all Twitch was doing was being his usual friendly self.

‘ _Not actively, but u know ur not getting any younger. Talking about which, I was thinking abt proposing to Bebe. We’ve been going out for about five years and u know she’s the luv of my life.’_ Craig had seen how mushy Clyde was around Bebe and how soft her smile was when she spoke to him, and more recently how concerned she had been when Clyde had been injured. They lived together, so Craig considered them to be practically married. He could tell that Clyde was nervous, though. It hadn’t been the first time he had brought the topic up, though it had been more of a side-thought than an actual plan.

‘ _Ur p much married at this point, might as well make it official._ ’

‘ _What if she says no tho?’_ Craig rolled his eyes. What was he now, a counsellor? But he typed out a reassuring reply to his friend anyway.

‘ _Ur more of an idiot than I thought. She wouldn’t have stayed w u for 5 years if she didn’t love ur crybaby ass._ ’ It took a while before he received another reply.

‘ _Ur right, I’m an idiot. Alright, I’m gonna do it tonight. Will let u know how it goes. U’ll def be my best man at my wedding.’_

Marriage, huh? Craig sighed, throwing his phone onto the couch next to him. It had been a long time since he could just sit down with someone to enjoy their presence, let alone marry. Thomas had been a good boyfriend, though with more time Craig spent working and less time with him, they had slowly drifted apart. He hadn’t been too sad about it, which he found to be a little concerning, considering they had gone out for a whole three months. As much as he convinced himself that he was fine being alone, the apartment seemed a little too quiet and empty for his comfort.

He placed his cold and sad taco back into the box and pushed it to the side, appetite gone. Now all he wanted to do was to sleep away his thoughts, feeling the tiredness and ache in his back. He would have just napped there on the couch, but he had already spent one night sleeping uncomfortably and he wanted mercy for his poor back. With a grunt, Craig made his way off the couch and stumbled back into his room, falling down onto his bed with a sigh.

His eyes fluttered close the instant his face touched his pillow, and he was knocked out in three seconds flat, sinking into a dreamless sleep.


	10. Jealousy Is Unbecoming Of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to D-mobile taught Craig many things. Jealousy might be one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last update I'm going to post while I take a break from writing this fic because at this point I have 90+ pages on google docs and re-reading what I wrote before is making me weep many because at some point I have no idea what's going on. So it'll be some time before I figure out the loopholes in my fic and also I might be starting another fic hoo boi
> 
> Thank you everyone who has stayed with this fic so far!! <3

Token had graciously reconsidered his idea of partnering Craig up with Kyle after receiving a strongly worded message from the former. Craig wasn’t going to accept being the redhead’s partner again just to be the third-wheel or play messenger boy in the Dream Team’s quarrel. As entertaining as it was for the first few minutes, it quickly got boring and annoying fast.

Well, at least they were getting somewhere in their mission. It had taken five days for the warrant to be processed and collected, though according to Clyde, it should have just taken one afternoon. That slimy Solitaire-playing prick had given him a smirk when he handed the documents over to their Intel officer. Craig had been present at the time, following Heidi as her backup. Craig had felt the strange feeling when he left the office, though when he looked around, the corridor was clear.

He was on their way to the D-mobile building now and it felt good to be on his own again, peace and quiet away from the arguing duo. The last time he saw them, the two had settled on silence and seemed on edge every time they crossed paths. Well, it wasn’t his problem anymore. He had a mission to focus on.

The goal for today was to procure a list of names from the contact list stored in the phone. Kyle had grumbled and shoved a file of papers at him, mentioning something about how he didn’t trust Craig to carry it out properly. Since the mission was supposed to remain strictly confidential, they had to go directly to the CEO. This time, Jimmy was going to join him in his quest, after he was done on his side. Craig thought back to what Chief Williams had said about the Interpol agent, but honestly, there was something about the Chief of Police that made Craig distrust his words.

It didn’t take him long before he arrived at the D-mobile headquarters. He parked at a nearby parking lot and walked through the business streets, arriving at the building. Craig pushed the glass door open, adjusting the uncomfortable tie he was wearing as he searched the ground floor for the Interpol agent. He found the man seated by the side, reading the newspaper.

“Good morning, Craig,” Jimmy greeted when he approached the man. He folded the newspaper and placed it to the side. “You’re rather early.”

“You’ve been here a while,” Craig said, eyeing the almost empty cup of coffee next to him.

“No worries. I’ve been entertaining myself with the daily funnies. Did you get the warrant from Chief Williams?”

Craig patted the file he was holding. “Right here,” he said with a smirk.

“Great! Let’s go up and meet the CEO of D-mobile.”

 

Craig had not expected the CEO of such an accomplished mobile cooperation to be a lady in her mid-twenties, dressed impeccably from head to toe. Leslie Meyers was the youngest businesswomen in the mobile market, though Craig hadn’t realised that it was D-mobile. As usual, he left the talking to someone else. Jimmy was more than willing to take that role. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she greeted as they entered her office, gesturing for them to have a seat on the two chairs in front of her desk. “I presume that you’re the Interpol agent, Mr Valmer?”

“That’s right, Ms Meyers. Interpol has made contact with you earlier in the week, though you denied the request for us to access the records. Here is the approved SCA warrant from the Chief of Police, so there is no reason for you to refuse giving us information now, unless you have something to hide?” Jimmy asked. Craig moved to place the file on her desk. Leslie took it, barely giving it a glance before placing it to the side.

“I’m only looking out for the confidentiality of my company’s users since I believe most of them would prefer to have their data kept private,” she said. “Of course, you will have to sign an agreement that you or Interpol will not disclose any of the information obtained during the investigation. Let my assistant know what you need and I’ll have him deliver a complete list to you by the end of the day once everything is in order.”

Jimmy nodded. “I see no problem with that. Thank you, Ms Meyers,” he said, flashing her a polite smile.

Leslie picked up a file, sliding it over to him. Her gaze flickered back to Jimmy. “The details of the agreement are stated clearly on this document and of course, I’ll need a signature from the Agency agent too.” Craig narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Ever since they stepped into the office, neither of them had mentioned anything about Craig, so how had she known? “You’re not the only one who requires information from my company,” she added, but made no further comments on that subject.

Craig watched as Jimmy scanned the document in the file before signing it with a flick of a pen. From what she had said, there was one other person who came here for information who knew that the Interpol was involved in this case. He had a lingering suspicion that a slimy prick had been here before them, which might have been why it had taken five days for their warrant to process. There wasn’t much for him to do here, though he could feel Leslie’s eyes on him. When he looked up to meet her gaze, she only smiled back, watching him carefully. Craig moved to look at the file, scanning through the details briefly. He signed it after finding nothing suspicious in the document, passing it back over to Jimmy.

“As agreed, you will deliver the information by the end of the day. The list is in the file with the warrant,” Jimmy said, taking the file in his hands. “Let us know if you have encountered any unforeseen circumstances. Here are my contact details,” Jimmy added, scribbling on a note and slipping it into the file.

Leslie nodded. “Of course, Mr Valmer. Have a nice day.” She turned to Craig with a coy smile. “You too, Mr Tucker.”

 

Craig only realised that she knew his name when he returned to his car. He hadn’t said a word during the entire exchange and neither had he presented his ID to the receptionist. He wasn’t sure if Jimmy had picked up on it because the other man was currently typing out a report on his phone. 

“Hey, Jimmy,” Craig said, when they came to a stop at a red light. “Something about the lady boss seem… strange, to you?”

“Aside from the fact that she’s young and pretty? Not really,” he replied, looking up from his phone. “Why? Something the matter?”

He didn’t know how to bring it up without sounding like a crazy man full of conspiracies. “She knew my name. I didn’t say anything during the conversation and yet she called me ‘Mr Tucker’ when we left.”

Jimmy threw him a frown, then gestured at the green lights in front of them. The car started moving again as Craig stepped on the gas pedal. “She probably saw your signature in the agreement document. That was where you wrote your name, right?”

Now that he thought about it... “Yeah, I did,” Craig said, though he had a feeling she hadn’t even glanced once at the file after he signed it. The smile at the end gave him a sneaking suspicion that something was going on with her. He told Jimmy as much, to which Jimmy only chuckled.

“I think she was flirting with you,” he concluded. “I mean, she was giving you the eyes and everything.” Flirting? That threw him for a loop. It hadn’t crossed his mind since he was focused on the mission. Also, he couldn’t tell if someone was flirting with him even if his life depended on it, according to Clyde. “You’re the kind that ladies go for: tall, dark and handsome,” Jimmy continued when Craig didn’t reply. “I’m kind of jealous, to be honest.”

“You don’t have to be. Once people find out what kind of person I am, they’ll leave naturally.” His tone came out drier than he expected, though he didn’t see a need to inform the other man that he swung for the other team. “I’m not a very interesting person.”

“And not very good with romance too, I’m assuming. I’ll help you out,” he said. Before Craig could object, Jimmy launched into his ‘lesson’. “You’ll have to see the signs of flirting. First, it’s important to know if the lady has an interest in you. You can tell from the way she holds eye contact with you and that smile she sent your way that she’s interested.”

“You’re quite the ladies’ man, aren’t you?”

Jimmy grinned. “Stand-up comedy on Friday nights gets me more than just applause from a good audience, my friend. I know conversations aren’t a strong suit of yours, so I’ll give you some advice: compliment her and engage in conversation, because ladies like that sort of stuff. Keep eye contact with her, maybe go the extra mile and reach out to ‘accidentally’ brush your hand against hers. Of course, there’s always the option of cracking jokes and teasing her when you’re past the introductory phase.”

That was a lot to take note of, but Craig got the gist of it. Eye contact, conversation and smiling. He thought back to all the times before during information gathering and somehow all the signs had gone over his head. How had he even been in a relationship before? “Hey, no pressure about anything, though,” Jimmy added, when Craig had remained too deep in thought. “I’ve might have heard something from a Mr Donovan.”

Ugh, who hasn’t Clyde told about his personal matters? “Look, Jimmy, I appreciate you trying to help me out, but like I told Clyde before, I’m not looking for anyone right now. I know he’s just concerned for me, but it’s getting annoying.”

“Well, you have to admit, two is a better company than one.” The Interpol agent threw him a cheeky grin. “If you’re free tonight, we could gather the other guys out for a fun night with some ladies, if you know what I mean,” he suggested. Craig instantly thought back to the mission at the Hazelnut Horse and shook his head.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t swing that way, so it’s not going to be fun for me,” Craig muttered. “And I don’t know how you’ll convince the Captain to let us ‘party’ with all this shit going on.”

“I guess we’ll just have to put the outing on hold until after the mission. Don’t worry, I’ll go scout out some bars that might tickle your fancy a little more.”

\-----

The Captain nodded when they finished giving their report on the visit to the D-mobile headquarters. “I see. Thank you for your work, Agent Valmer, Agent Tucker. I’ll inform you when we have any further updates.” Seeing that there wasn’t much else to discuss, the two stood up to leave. “Agent Tucker, I would like to have a word with you,” Token said, before Craig could step out of the room.

“I’ll leave you fellas to it. Captain Black, I’ll send you more updates from my side too,” Jimmy said with a hand on the door.

“Thank you, Agent Valmer.” Once Craig was seated again, Token pushed a file to him that he hadn’t touched the entire time. Craig had been wondering when he was going to bring it up. “Craig, you know how we are currently lacking in manpower to carry out our investigations, right?” he asked Craig nodded in agreement. There weren’t as many field agents as there were before since the change in management.  “The Chief assigned Agent Cox and Agent Broflovski a simple mission, where you’ll be assessing them to see if they’re ready to join our team. You’ll be assisting Red on her mission at the docks as the backup crew, along with the help from the local police force. I believe that you shouldn’t find it too hard. The necessary information is in the file and I expect a report on my desk the day after.”

“Aye aye, Captain. I’ll bring them back in one piece,” Craig replied, pleased to see that Token had cracked a smile at that.

“I have a feeling that we might need all hands on deck for this mission of ours, so your rookies better be in top shape when we need them to be.”

 

Red’s mission was to bust the illegal arms trafficking deal going on at the docks, which was happening in three days. A simple mission, but there was always the chance that something could go wrong. Craig was allowed to bring his sniper rifle along, but he would have to remain on the ground with his rookies in case anything happened to them. He did make a promise to the captain that he would at least make sure the rookies would be relatively unharmed.

First, he had to find them. Clyde had mentioned that they didn’t have training today, so Craig wasn’t going to just stumble across them in the Headquarters building. He sent out a message in the group chat, asking where they were. Ike had responded immediately with a couple of strange-looking frog pictures that Craig wished he didn’t know the name of, which incited Clyde to add more from his collection too. Craig promptly slid the phone back into his pocket, thankful for the ‘notification off’ setting.

Strangely enough, Twitch hadn’t replied once throughout the entire exchange, or seen the messages for that matter. Well, Craig could wait until tomorrow to see him at Headquarters. For now, he was going down to the Gadget Lab to pick up his pistols.

As he walked down the corridor, Craig found it weird that Kyle was standing by the doorway of the break room, empty mug clutched tightly in hand. Once he peered in, he figured out why the redhead had such a deep-set frown.

There was the sound of conversation coming from within, a light tone that Craig hadn’t expected Stan to have while he was still in the state of moping over Kyle. He was more surprised to see the person he was talking to. Twitch was looking at something on Stan’s phone, leaning awfully close to the other man. Was that why he hadn’t seen the messages in the group chat? But Craig would have been a hypocrite if he said he wasn’t affected by the scene. He argued internally that it was because the blonde hadn’t seen the important announcement and not the sight of the blonde brushing his arm against the other man. His mind immediately went to Jimmy’s tips from earlier in the day, briefly wondering if Twitch was flirting with Stan. Eye contact, smiling, casual ‘accidental’ touching...

A wave of jealousy came over him at the thought. Without further hesitation, he made his way into the room. His long legs made short work of closing the distance, and he hovered behind them with his arms crossed. Twitch was the first to notice his presence, looking up at him with curious blue eyes. “Hey, Craig, how did the mission go?” he asked.

“Not too badly. I can’t give you the details, but there is some progress,” Craig replied tersely.

“That’s great! Well, I was hoping to ask you about something, but then you weren’t in and I bumped into Stan here earlier. He was really helpful,” Twitch said.

“Of course. You can always come to me for anything.” Stan had his attention back on the blonde in front of him, throwing him a friendly smile. For some reason, that rubbed him the wrong way.

“What, aren’t you still moping over Broflovski? Moving along so soon?” Craig remarked. He knew it was a strike below the belt, but he wasn’t in the mood for being nice. That turned the smile on Stan’s face frigid.

“I’ve decided that if Kyle doesn’t want to talk to me, I should respect his wishes,” he replied, albeit a little louder than normal. Stan definitely knew that Kyle was outside the room, listening in to their conversation. There was the sound of shuffling steps outside, which sounded suspiciously like Kyle leaving.

Twitch gave Stan a worried look. “I know I suggested giving Kyle some space, but…”

Stan only sighed. “This is the only thing I can do, I guess. Work takes priority right now.” He glanced at his phone, then stood up, chair dragging on the ground. “Anyway, Twitch, thanks for talking with me. I’d better get going now.”

“So soon?”

“Someone looks a little upset over there, so I think it’s time for me to leave,” Stan added, giving Craig a glare. “Just send me a message when you need to ask me anything, if Agent Tucker here can’t help you.”

After he left, Craig took the seat that he had occupied previously, staring a hole onto the ground. “You didn’t have to be so mean to him,” Twitch said, after the silence between them dragged on for a while. “Stan’s still a little sensitive about the Kyle thing.”

“He pissed me off,” Craig replied with a grumble. “He had it coming.”

“Still… What did he do to piss you off?” That was a question Craig wasn’t going to answer. Now that he had time to sit down and think about it, he supposed he had acted a little childish, purely out of jealousy. Not that he could give Twitch that excuse. So he used his favourite tactic again: subject changing.

“Chief Testaburger has assigned Ike, you and I on an actual field mission.” Something in his eyes told Craig that Twitch wasn’t going to forget their earlier exchange, but Twitch nodded at his words, letting it go for now. “I guess you haven’t seen the announcement in the group chat?”

Twitch pulled out his phone, which was flashing green. He showed Craig the hundreds of unread messages from their group chat. “You mean this?” he said, pointing to the ‘99+ new messages’ tab, then swiped the notification away. “It’s hard to find anything in there with Clyde and Ike going to town with the memes.”

“I’ll send the message to you directly next time.” He felt bad for the rookie being involved with the other two’s antics. Then, he blinked. “You got a new phone?”

“Clyde insisted. My old phone couldn’t install apps and he really wanted the group chat.” Twitch sighed, placing it down onto the table. “I don’t like the newer phones, what with the GPS tracking and all that crap. You don’t know what the mobile companies will do with all that information.” Craig agreed with him. After all, he had just been to a mobile company to retrieve information. “So, about this mission?”

“Right. We’re going down to the western docks in three days to assist Red in the takedown of an illegal arms trafficking crew. I’m not really sure about the nitty gritty details, but the local police are involved and the three of us will be acting as the backup crew,” Craig said. “We won’t be running into action, but be prepared to get any stragglers who think they’re sneaky enough to escape the scene. Do you have a working pistol?”

“No. I’m still not really used to using guns.” Twitch pulled out a sheathed blade from his pocket. “Don’t worry, I can defend myself just fine with this.”

Craig looked at him and his tiny knife skeptically. “You know this is an illegal arms trafficking,” he emphasised, “where they are transporting illegal  _ guns _ . Your knife won’t save you from a bullet when it comes down to a one-on-one fight.”

“But you will.” He gave Craig such a soft smile that should have been illegal. It was hard to look away from his earnest face. Why did he have to be so damn cute? “You’ll always have our backs, right?”

“Yeah,” Craig said. “I did make a promise to the bossman.”

“Good. Then there won’t be any problems.” Twitch picked up his phone, tucking it back into his pocket. “I need to head down to the Gadget Lab to speak with Bebe about something.” He glanced over at Craig. “Do you want to…? Never mind. You’re probably busy right now.”

“No, I’m not,” Craig replied immediately. “What is it?”

Twitch shook his head. “I was just wondering if you wanted to come along, because there’s still more things I wanted to ask you.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve got to pick up my pistols from Stoley anyway.”

“Great!” Twitch replied with a grin, which turned a smidge more impish. “Maybe you can tell me more about why Stan pissed you off so much.” Shit. He hadn’t forgotten about that.


	11. Denny's French Fries and Milkshakes at 2AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Side mission with Red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyyy guess who's still continuing this fic after half a year (maybe more whoops)

“So, they sent you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Craig scowled, crossing his arms.

Red rolled her eyes. “I meant that the Chief should have picked someone better for backup, when it’s just you and two rookies. Didn’t you get shot last mission?” she sniped.

“Hey, that was uncalled for.” Craig knew that Red was just salty that she didn’t get added to the roster for the ‘top-secret money laundering’ mission that was going on, but it wasn’t because she lacked the skills. Red had been working on busting the illegal arms trafficking going on for months now and Wendy wasn’t going to take her out from it, not when there was still so much to do and she was their best agent. “At least you’re getting all the action. The most I’ve gotten was going to a strip club with Marsh.”

That made Red laugh. “I guess I ain’t missing out on much,” she commented, strapping a pistol to a belt. “But I’m the one leading the bust here, so you’d better listen up, all right? I don’t need you assholes messing around.” She raised her voice so that the two rookies snapped their attention onto her.

“Don’t start bullying them, Red,” Annie piped up from the side, handing out the communications devices to the two. She gave them sympathetic looks. “She doesn’t mean it. Red is usually very nice; she just likes acting tough for the newbies.”

“Annie,” Red hissed, throwing her friend a dirty look, “don’t tell them that. You’re ruining my reputation.” She cleared her throat. “So, as usual, the police have surrounded the perimeter and I’ll be taking the lead from there, joining them in on the attack. You three will be backup, hidden behind the shipment containers over here,” she said, pointing out on a section on the map. “Craig will be on sniper duty and you two will be watching the ground for anybody trying to escape. If they do come your way, pin ‘em down, capture ‘em, whatever, just don’t kill ‘em. Annie, the Comms officer for this mission, will relay any information going around the site and will call on you for backup, but I doubt that will happen. Any questions?”

Ike raised his hand. “What if they do escape?” he asked. “Any contingency plans for that?”

“Make sure it doesn’t happen. You don’t want to find out what happens if they do,” she said with a sharp grin. Ike glanced to Craig with slight worry, but Craig only shrugged, handing him a pistol. Red looked over at the screen, turning her back to them. “All right, get into your positions. We’ll need to get ready before they come.”

 

With the full black bodysuit, it was easy for them to blend by the shadows of the shipping containers. From where he stood, he found a good vantage point at the top of some stacked shipping containers. “There’s still time before the shipment’s arrival,” Craig said, glancing down at his watch. “If you’re not sure about anything, feel free to ask now.”

“ _ Yeah, I don’t need you and your rookie team bungling up my mission. _ ” Red’s voice sounded in his ear. “ _ Annie will help you out. I’ll be busy with the police squad, since someone has to make sure those dumbasses know who’s in charge here.” _

“Yeah, yeah.” Craig switched the earpiece off, then placed his rifle case on the ground and started assembling his sniper rifle. He could see Ike sidle closer to take a look at his practiced motions, eyes shining with awe. “If you can get the Marksman title for your next evaluation, maybe the Chief would consider letting you use this,” Craig said with a grin, tapping the side of the gun. He checked the safety before slinging it onto his back.

“That won’t take long. I’ll be better than you before you know it,” Ike replied. He patted the pistol on his waist. “For now, I’ll use this one.”

“But remember, no aiming to kill. We don’t need a mess on our hands to take care of.”

A solemn look fell on his boyish face. “Have you ever killed anyone before?”

“Yes, I have. When you use a gun, that’s inevitable.” Craig narrowed his eyes at the younger boy. “But you have to remember that capturing is more important on our end since the information we need is too valuable. Let the law handle them, not us.”

Hearing soft footsteps behind him, Craig turned around. “Hey, done with that phone call?” he asked. “You know about the ‘no phones on mission’ rule.”

Twitch nodded, tucking his phone into a pocket compartment. “Sorry about that. My cousin was just updating me on my uncle’s health,” he said. “He hadn’t been feeling too well lately.”

“Well, try to keep your personal business outside of work. Focus on the mission at hand.”

“Of course,” Twitch answered with a nod.

It was going to be time soon. Before Craig started climbing up the container, he turned to Twitch, pulling out a pistol from his belt and pushing it into his hand. “Don’t argue with me on this. You don’t have to use it, take it just in case,” Craig said. He looked over to Ike. “And you, just remember your training and don’t be a reckless dumbass.”

It wasn’t hard getting to the top of the containers, though it was another matter when he had to remain lying prone uncomfortably. Craig pulled the sniper rifle off his back, adjusting the scope so that he had a view of the dock, then flipped on the earpiece. There were only a few private-owned ships parked there, belonging to some rich assholes. So far, it was quiet on the horizon. “I’m in position,” he reported, glancing down to check on the rookies. Ike was hopping from one foot to the other while Twitch was leaning against the container, looking out at the port. Every now and then, there was a glimmer of light from the blade in Twitch’s hand. Craig was glad to see that he had the sense to at least put the gun on his belt. One less thing for him to worry about.

The dull thud of a boat hitting the side of the dock broke the silence of the night, alerting Craig to their arrival. It was still dark, which meant that whoever arrived was trying not to alarm the security at port. Speaking of which, where was security? Usually there would be people patrolling the area, watching out for shady activity.

“ _ They’ve arrived. Craig, do you have eyes on them?” _ Annie’s voice rang in the earpiece. Through his night vision scope, he could make out a dinky fishing boat that could hold at least ten people. There was movement by shadowy figures, where he could make out people climbing out and securing said boat to the dock.

“There’s some fishy business going on here,” Craig muttered. Putting on his best fisherman accent, he said, “we’re reelin’ in a good catch tonight, boys.”

“ _ Not time for your jokes now, Tucker, _ ” Red scolded. “ _ That should be our target. How many people are there on board?” _

He counted them silently. “About five, but there could be more inside. They’re moving crates out of the boat, but who knows what could be inside them.”

“ _ Stay in position until I give further instructions. Craig, keep watching them and report any suspicious movements. Rookies, look out for escape vehicles.” _

“Got it.” He heard two more answers echo in his ear, but his sight was focused on the dock. 

As he mentioned, there were five people: three of them moving crates off the boat, one of them carrying the boxes further inland and the last one was scouting out the area. The person’s face lit up in the darkness, to which Craig assumed that he was using his phone, messaging whoever was running this business. He knew that Red couldn’t charge out now with the police when there was the possibility of them escaping via sea. They had to make sure that all of the people involved were on land, where they would be easier to corner and capture.

“ _ There’s a truck approaching from the other side,” _ came Ike’s voice.

“Make sure they don’t see you,” Craig warned. “Hide in the shadows until they pass.” He glanced over his shoulder, noting the quiet engine whirrs of an approaching car. There was the sound of a gate rattling as it slid open, allowing the truck entry into the port. The lights of the car was off, which hinted that they were trying to operate under the cover of darkness, and Craig saw no other reason to aside from shady business.

“Total number confirmed to be… six. One more just drove in from outside, probably to meet up with the other five.” He checked the boat once more, but there was no movement from that side. “Boat is presumably clear, all six of them are on the dock by the crates.”

“ _ All right. Shield your eyes, boys!” _

The moment he heard that phrase, he shut his eyes immediately, hearing the loud tell-tale explosion of a flashbang. He counted three seconds before he returned to his scope, scanning the scene through the chaos. There was loud shouting of ‘surrender now!’ through the chaos, though all six of the people looked around in confusion and fear. They scattered immediately at the sight of the police, ducking behind crates and pulling out guns. Craig spotted Red’s bright hair amongst the group, already shooting at the men.

“Ike, Twitch, stay put,” Craig ordered, aiming at the gun held by one of the men. He took the shot, savouring the moment as the man’s face twisted in confusion when the gun flew out of his hands before he was hurled onto the ground by Red. A nearby police officer handcuffed the man, ducking out of the way of another. Craig moved on to another target, doing the same thing once more. Yet another easy capture for the police.

Barely ten minutes in, the chaos settled and there were four angry men pulled together in a pile. “Wait, there’s still more missing,” Craig said, looking around for the missing crook.

“ _ I’ve got sights on one of them. I’ll go after him,” _ Ike said. “ _ Twitch, you go around the other corner and cut the other man off. _ ”

“ _ Got it. _ ”

Craig immediately abandoned his post after seeing the two figures dash out from the hidden shadows of the containers, pulling out the pistol from his belt. He told them not to be reckless and here they were, chasing after armed criminals. There was no point in using his sniper in such a close distance with the target on the run. Sliding off the container, he landed on his feet and took off in the direction of his rookies.

He heard the sound of footsteps around the corner, so he followed it, hoping to catch up with at least one of them. When he turned the corner, there wasn’t anyone there. Suddenly, a loud shout came from behind him.

Whipping around, he saw a man holding up an AK-47 rifle pointed in his direction. He wouldn’t be fast enough to duck and shoot him, having been caught off guard. Suddenly, Twitch appeared right behind the other man, effectively surprising him. In the brief moment it took for the man to register Twitch there, the blonde had smashed the man’s chin with the rifle, easily wrenching it out of the stunned man’s hand. He threw it behind him, then kicked out at his leg while the other man was still holding his face, causing him to lose balance and tumble to the ground unceremoniously.

This was the first time that Craig had actually seen Twitch fight, not counting their first spar. The man had been much bulkier than Twitch, but Craig knew from experience that the blonde had a hidden strength no one would have expected from his wiry figure. Twitch had the man in a chokehold now, using the force of his weight to pin him down onto the ground. Craig could tell that the man was slowly recovering from the earlier blow, so he ran in to help, stowing his guns back onto the belt.

With both of them there to pin down the crook, no matter how much he struggled, the man wasn’t able to break free. Twitch was breathing heavily, but he was also grinning widely. “That was something,” Craig praised, holding his hand up. “Good job, Twitch.”

He returned the high-five with a grin. “Thanks, Craig. I’m just glad that you weren’t hurt.” Twitch’s hair was messy and his face was laced with sweat, but Craig found it inherently charming. The close proximity they were in wasn’t helping his racing heart and he swallowed whatever he wanted to say. He was cute, he could hold his own in a fight, what more could Craig ask for?

“Hey, nice aim today. I guess I should have given you more credit than I thought.” Red’s voice broke the moment between them. She glanced at them with suspicion when they leaned back from each other, then shrugged. “Twitch, is it? Good work today,” she said, bending down to cuff the crook’s hands together. She turned to Craig. “Your other boy captured the other crook on his own, which considering his non-existent experience level, is very impressive. Tell the Chief that they pass.”

“Coming from you, that’s good praise,” Craig smirked, moving to help Twitch to his feet. He liked the feeling of Twitch’s warm hand in his, though the brief contact was over when Twitch let go.

“Well, you’re free to go. I’ll handle everything here.” Red jabbed her finger at where the other criminals were gathered. “Ike is waiting with the other policemen. Go rescue him before he gets eaten by the big dogs.”

“Ha, that brat may be young, but he doesn’t need me to rescue him from anything.” Craig had no doubt that Ike knew how to handle himself. The boy knew how to carry himself. If anything, the other policemen should be looking out for him.

They joined back with Ike when Red was giving them a short debrief. Annie was smiling at them from beside her. “Excellent work today. I’ll send back a report to Chief Testaburger about your performance today. I think you’ll have a chance to go on more missions much earlier than you think,” she finished, clapping her hands together. “Anyway, you’re dismissed. Go home and get a good night’s sleep.”

Craig turned to Ike after Red left, his lips twitching up in a grin. “Hey, you did good out there,” he said, reaching out to ruffle the younger man’s hair. Ike let him, not without much protesting. Craig could tell he liked it though, with the laughs he was letting out. “I heard you got one of them on your own.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t too hard,” Ike said, bashful. “He didn’t see me, so I copied you and shot the gun out of his hand.”

“Dangerous, but good job, kiddo. I knew you could do it.” He could put that in the report to the Chief and see if she would consider allowing Ike to take on missions earlier. Twitch was congratulating Ike with pats on the shoulder.

He could feel his stomach rumbling. “Hey, rookies, do you want to go grab a bite to eat? My treat,” Craig said. “Anything you’re in the mood for?”

“It’s 2AM. What’s open at 2AM?” Ike asked.

“You’ll be surprised. Twitch, any suggestions?”

Twitch blinked at him, phone in hand. “I don’t mind anything,” he replied. “As long as it’s not coffee.”

One place came to mind. “Well, I’m bringing you guys to drink the city’s best milkshake.”

\-----

“I can’t believe they still haven’t repaired the milkshake machine yet,” Craig complained, shoving an ice-cream-drowned fry into his mouth.

The three of them were seated in a corner, the rest of the Denny’s restaurant empty of other human beings aside from the man behind the counter, wiping it down for the fifth time (Craig counted). They ordered a tray of fries to share, accompanied with a glass of ice-cream each for both Craig and Ike. Eating junk food this late at night brought back memories of sneaking out of his house to join Clyde on a fast food run.

“If they could serve ice-cream, I don’t see why they can’t serve milkshake. Isn’t it just non-frozen ice-cream?” Ike agreed, reaching out for the fries.

“You guys are disgusting,” Twitch commented, dipping his fry in ketchup. He scrunched up his nose at them earlier when both of them dipped their potato sticks into the sweet cup of cold cream. “I can’t believe you can eat that abomination.”

Craig held out one of said abominations to Twitch. “You haven’t lived until you try it,” he said. Twitch had his lips pursed, brows furrowed as he considered it. “Try it,” Craig repeated, wiggling it in front of him. A drop of the melted cream threatened to drip onto the tray. Beside him, Ike chanted along.

“Fine.” He leaned forward, a pink tongue darting out to catch the drop before it fell. Twitch took a bite from the fry, pulling back with a thoughtful chew. Craig hadn’t expected him to eat it directly from his hand, eyes on the blonde, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. He snapped his attention back up when Twitch glanced over at him. “I guess it’s not half-bad.”

“Want more?” Craig offered, pushing his half-empty glass of ice-cream towards him. He finished off the half-eaten potato stick.

“Just because I said it’s ‘not half-bad’ doesn’t mean I like it,” Twitch replied, picking one from the potato mountain and stubbornly dipping it into the slowly diminishing ketchup dish. He looked up at Craig, chewing with a frown. “Is this what you usually do after missions? Late-night snacks at fast-food diners?”

“Not usually, no. I did that years back when I was still in high school,” Craig said wistfully. “And usually with milkshakes,” he added as an afterthought.

“Secret agents are more normal than I thought.” Twitch stirred his iced tea, taking a sip from the glass. “I expected more undercover work, like spending time collecting information in a local gang or something. I assumed that you would be doing a lot more as a sniper.”

“I thought so too, six years ago.” Craig finished off his last helping of fries, licking the salt off his fingers. “Turns out sharpshooting skills are useless when most work is spent talking to people. The Burger Queen knows that, so she doesn’t usually assign intel-collecting missions to me. You wouldn’t know this, but most, if not all, of the people you see in the Headquarters branch graduated from the same batch.”

Twitch nodded in understanding. “I assume that Captain Black is also one of them? I saw you talking to him the other day and you guys seemed to be on good terms.”

“That’s right. He’s mainly in charge of organising the operation now, but he’s usually away to the other branches to help out in their side. Anyway, about tonight’s mission with Red—”

“Really? You guys are still talking about work even now?” Ike pushed his empty cap to the side. “Come on, live a little.”

Craig gave him the side-eye. “You’re acting just like a kid. No, wait, you actually are still a kid.”

“I’m only five years younger!”

“Yep, sounds like a kid to me.”

“Stop teasing him, Craig,” Twitch interrupted, though Craig could tell that he was hiding his smile behind his hand. “Let him be, he did take down a bad guy today.”

Craig put a hand to his chin in mock thought. “All right, you’re off the hook today,” he decided. “Only because Twitch decided to back you up.”

“I’ll go get a refill of ketchup,” Twitch said with a nod. “I’ll be back soon.”

Once Twitch was out of hearing range, Ike leaned forward. “Just only because Twitch said so, huh?” he said, grinning widely at Craig.

“So?”

Ike blinked. “You’re not denying it?”

“Everyone seems to know at this point, so why hide it anymore?” Craig said, rolling his eyes.

“Everyone except Twitch. Clyde spreads the word fast.” Craig glanced over at Twitch talking to the man at the counter. Twitch was reaching out to get the ketchup but he was stopped by the man, who pressed something into his hand. There was a moment of awkwardness between them before Twitch spoke to him again. “Anyway, I think he’s single and ready to mingle,” Ike said with a wink.

“Never say that again,” Craig replied instantly. Twitch hurriedly moved back to their table, sliding back into his seat.

“I can never come back here again,” he said, throwing ketchup packets onto the table. He slumped face first onto the table.

“Oh, did that man give you his number?” Ike asked. Twitch nodded mutely.

“Rejecting him made me feel bad, but he kept insisting on giving it to me. He’s a little, uh, insistent.” He seemed a little uneasy, shifting now and then to glance behind him. “Is he still looking this way?”

Ike stretched out to look over the seat towards the counter. “Yeah. He looks kind of creepy.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle this for you.” Craig held a hand out to Twitch expectantly. The blonde handed over the napkin with numbers scribbled onto it hesitantly. The ink was already bleeding into the napkin, smudging the numbers badly. From where he sat, he had a good view of the counter and true enough, the man was looking over at them.

He made sure the man had seen him take said napkin from Twitch. Holding it up higher, he ripped it into half, then half again, until it was only strips of flaky tissue. Satisfied with the dawning look of horror on the man’s face, Craig flipped him off for good measure. Instantly the man darted off to the back, probably to cry or something.

“You’re such an asshole,” Twitch said, letting out a breath of relief, “but thanks.”

“Hey guys, I think we should leave before we really can’t return for good,” Ike piped up. Craig agreed when he noticed the man was back at the counter, glaring daggers their way. With mutual agreement, the three of them left the grease-covered tray on the table, leaving the store and into the cold winter street.

Ike stopped them outside, jabbing his thumb the opposite way. “I’m gonna crash at my friend’s house for tonight, so have fun walking back,” he said, sending a wink to Craig. He mouthed, ‘ _ he’s single _ ’ before waving to Twitch, who didn’t notice the silent communication going on between them. “See you guys tomorrow!”

“Text me when you’re there, all right?” Craig called out, pulling out his phone for the GPS. The neighbourhood was familiar, but he wasn’t going to take any chances this late at night. Twitch fell into step beside him, both of them making their way through the dimly-lit street, their feet crunching on the untouched snow below.

The trek back was quiet with a comfortable silence between them until Twitch spoke up. “Hey, Craig? About earlier?” he said slowly, turning to look at Craig. For a moment, Craig didn’t know what he was referring to. A lot had happened in one night. The mission? The milkshake? The indecent amount of time that Craig spent staring at him? “Thanks for helping me out.”

“Like I said, it’s nothing. He was bothering you, so I took care of it. You’ve got to let them know firmly if you’re not interested,” Craig said. “Or they’ll keep coming back.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Some women can be really persistent, even when I tell them I don’t swing that way.” Craig looked down at his phone, though he was waiting for any kind of response from the other man. So far, he wasn’t getting much of anything. Twitch hadn’t reacted negatively yet, which Craig took to be a good sign.

“I can see why they would. You’re tall, handsome and have that brooding look about you,” Twitch replied with understanding. “Many people like that.”

“Does that include you?” To his horror, he realised that he had actually said it out loud. Twitch was staring back at him, eyes wide. Great, blurt it all out to the one person he had this dumb crush on like some dumb teenager. Now, all Craig just wanted to do was to dig a hole and bury himself six feet under to save himself from this embarrassment. Good thing that Craig wasn’t observing his training now, or the next few days were going to be  _ so awkward _ .

Twitch’s gaze softened as he replied. “I guess you can count me as one of them,” Twitch said, giving him that soft smile of his, which only made Craig realise how much affection swelled up for this one cute blonde. Shit. Wait, did that mean that there was an actual chance that Twitch would go out with him if he asked? Shit, shit,  _ shit _ —

“Oh, isn’t this the apartment where you live?” Twitch asked. With his head all muddled processing his thoughts, Craig hadn’t realised that they had already reached the street where his apartment was at. Looking up at the familiar building, he nodded. Now that they stood there, with Twitch shifting from foot to foot and him with his strangely damp palms, he didn’t know what to do. Twitch was clearly waiting for him to say something, anything.

“Hey, do you want to come up for a while?” he asked. “I can, uh, make you a…” Now that he thought about it, there wasn’t anything much in his house that he could make for a potential guest when the only guest he usually had was Clyde, who usually brought over his own food. Shit, he was usually so calm, so clear-headed. Where did all these nerves come from?

“It’s already pretty late. I don’t want to keep you up any longer,” Twitch said. That sounded like an indirect rejection, but he had a point; it was about three in the morning. Craig felt as if someone just dumped a bucket of snow onto him. Suddenly, the call of his bed upstairs seemed very tempting as the tiredness from the day weighed heavy on his back. 

Twitch must have noticed his downcast expression. "Well, maybe some other time?" he suggested, tucking a couple of loose hair behind his ear. His face was flushed from the cold, blue eyes watching a spot on the snowy ground by his feet. If Craig didn't know any better, it was just like a scene out of a romance novel. What would a suave protagonist do? Sweep the heroine off her feet, then dip her into a...

“Good night, Craig,” he said, cutting his daydream short. His gaze lingered on Craig a little longer than necessary, then he turned around and left Craig standing there alone, dumbfounded.

Even as he lay on his bed, he was still thinking that it had all been just a figment of his imagination. Needless to say, he didn’t get any sleep that night.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've decided on a two-chapters ahead sort of writing and posting schedule, so the next part of the fic may be posted depending on how progress has gone. Thanks for reading my fic!


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